Life on the Mist Farm
by Yuki Toshiro
Summary: Rune Factory story. Follow Raguna, Mist and the other villagers as they live their lives and uncover the secrets of their town. Raguna/Mist and a bunch of one sided romances. Ch. 11 is up. Formerly in the Harvest Moon section.
1. First Week of Spring: First Impressions

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harvest Moon or Rune Factory…**

**Life on the Mist Farm**

**First Week of Spring: First Impressions**

It has only been a couple days since Raguna, someone who collapsed in front of Mist's house who lost his memory, started to work on her farm. Since then he's been the talk of the town and many of the conversations have been along the lines of 'Mist suckered him into working on the farm' but they knew in their hearts that she did what she thought was best for him… in her own, special way, emphasizing on 'special' a little bit. She was a good girl who always thought about really awkward things and tends not to connect the dots as fast as she probably should. And after spending some time with her, Raguna started to think the same thing.

Raguna seemed to be a generally nice guy as well as a very dependable person. But it seemed as though he pushes his body a bit further than he should. But he was very good at the job, in fact at times he really did seem like he was a farmer all of his life. Mist seemed to be right on the money when she decided to let Raguna work her farm. Well to be fair it wasn't "her" farm anymore, it was his. She loved to work on the farm before but she knew she wasn't much of a farmer so she was alright with him on the farm. She would check oh him everyday to see how he was doing often and at times would talk to him while he worked. She still remembered the time when he showed up too, how couldn't she, this was just a couple days ago.

_It was a bright sunny day and Mist was outside her house eating. After she was done she went inside in order to wash up. Then something unexpected happened. A young man, close to her age, just walked in from the outside border of town and collapsed in front of her house. She came to check out what happened._

"_Are you okay?" she seemed more intrigued though thinking, "Wow, I've never seen anyone actually on the verge collapse before…" _

"_Huh? Well… I've been walking… for days… with no food… no water…" Said the stranger_

"_Ooh, that's not healthy! Hold on a sec." so she went into her house only to return with a hoe, "Here, you can have my hoe!" He looked somewhat confused mostly because he didn't know what to do with a hoe of all things right now._

"_Actually… I was hoping for some water…"_

"_Oh, right, water!" It seemed as though something clicked in her mind, "Okay, wait just one moment." She then came back with a watering can._

"_Here you go, try this watering can!" once again looking a little awkward_

"_Umm…"_

"_Is there something else that you need?"_

"_I meant… some drinking water…"_

"_Oh, duh! Sorry, it's just that the way you look and all… I thought a hoe and watering can would be more your style!" She felt a bit embarrassed at this point. Okay, I'll be right back!" and so she finally came back with the appropriate food and water. "Here you go, some water and bread!"_

_After eating the food and drinking the water, he felt a bit of his energy coming back. "Thank you. You saved my life."_

"_Oh it's nothing! Say, you're not from this town , are you? Are you on a trip or something?"_

"_Well… to be honest… I don't really know myself."_

"_What do you mean you don't know?"_

"_I don't remember where I was before coming here. I don't even know who I am…"_

"_You mean…you have amnesia?"_

"_Maybe…"_

"_Do you remember your name?"_

"_No…"_

"_Well, everyone needs a name."_

"_That's true."_

"_Why don't you pick one right now?"_

"_Okay, well, what about Raguna?"_

"_Raguna, I like it!"_

"_You do? Thanks. By the way, what's your name?"_

"_Oh, my name's Mist! Say, Raguna, what are you going to do now?"_

"_I'm trying to find an inhabited town… I haven't thought past that part yet."_

"_In that case, I have an empty house and field you can use."_

"_I… I don't know what to say… But no, I couldn't possibly…"_

"_Don't be silly! I'm not using them anyway. Besides, I meant what I said before. I think you look like a farmer Raguna!"_

"_Do you really think I have what it takes to work a farm?"_

"_Um… well… I think you have talent!"_

"_Okay…" Mist looked very excited at this point._

_She took his hand and decided to show him that farm. "oh, this is going to be so fun! Come on, the house and the field are to the north."_

"_This is my home and farm. What do you think? Not too bad eh?"_

"_Yeah, but I'm not asking you to let me work on the land here or anything."_

"_Don't worry about that. It's better for me to get all the help I can!"_

"_B… but…"_

"_This is the field. I haven't done any work on it for a while so it's overgrown." She walked forward a bit only to find a monster just teleported onto the field._

"_Step back Mist, there's a monster there!" wanting to help her he took the hoe he was given and attacked the monster until it disappeared. "Phew… I managed to defeat it! Are you okay, Mist?"_

"_Yeah, I'm okay. What about you Raguna?"_

"_Yeah, I'm okay too, but I think I killed the monster."_

"_No, it's still alive!"_

"_Wait, what?" frantically looking around for the monster._

"_Weapons and tools have a kind of magic called "Retornen", a kind of magic that sends monsters back to their original place."_

_Now he started to look at her kinda weirdly, "Original place?"_

"_Monsters are like a spirit, they came from a different world than ours called the "First Forest"!_

"_Oh really? Well… I'm glad that I didn't kill it!"_

"_Anyway, I was impressed by you there! Did you learn how to fight or perform swordsmanship somewhere?"_

"_I might have, but my memory…"_

"_Oh, yeah." She felt embarrassed again forgetting that fact. "But that's beside the point, I want to know what the monster was doing here…"_

"_Don't they usually appear above ground?"_

"_Well there are people called Earthmates who can summon monsters."_

""_Earthmates?"_

"_They are people who can hear the earth's voice. Some of them can communicate with the monsters. Some people in town live with monsters, but this is the first time a fighting monster was summoned."_

"_Really?"_

"_Well, anyway, you saved me! Thank you so much." She felt so relived and grateful that she ended up hugging him._

"_Hey, it's nothing."_

"_Raguna, I really we you for this!"_

"_No, really it was nothing."_

"_As a token of my gratitude. I'm going to let you work on the fields here."_

_He really didn't know how to work a field but he thought that it wasn't right for him to just take her farm "No, I really couldn't…"_

"_You helped me out, and so I want to do something for you too." He really couldn't but she insisted so much that refusing her would feel kinda mean._

"_Well if you insist, thank you very much!"_

"_You'll work here, I'm so happy!"_

"_But why are you doing this for me"_

"_I'm not really sure… but I feel that you have potential, that you understand the ways of the earth."_

"_Is that so?"_

"_I also feel that while working here, your memory may come back."_

"_In that case, I'll be happy to work here."_

And so was the start of Raguna's new life. Mist was more than glad that he was here working on the farm. Soon she found that Raguna was getting hot and sweaty, and for the most part really tired so she ran into her house in order to get something for him. Raguna on the other hand sat on top of a boulder once again on the verge of collapse until Mist came running back with water and food.

"Raguna, hold on!"

"Mist..." She had given him the food and water and then helped him to the shade where she held him in her lap and started fanning him and cooling him off.

"Hey, are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm alright."

"Good, I thought I had to bring you over to the hospital again like yesterday."

"I'm sorry for worrying you, I guess I'm still weak."

"No that's okay. When I was working on the farm before, I was like you sometimes. I used to pass out sometimes and sometimes I got really dizzy."

"That's not very healthy."

"And this isn't either, just remember that you're not the only one working out here."

"Same to you." They stared at each other for a while until Rosetta decided to come pick up the shipment.

"Hey you two! I didn't realize that you two were already like that!" The both of them blushed and looked at her, then looked at each other. Raguna was too embarrassed to speak, while Mist, probably just as embarrassed, spoke out.

"It's not like that… I just… we were just resting."

"I can see that! You know what, whatever the both of you do is none of my business!" Rosetta was just teasing them at this point.

"Rosetta!"


	2. Second Week of Spring: Sightseeing

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harvest Moon or Rune Factory…**

**Life on the Mist Farm**

**Second Week of Spring: Sightseeing**

Raguna was quickly getting used to the town and everyone accepted him as if he always lived in Kardia. Emmett invited him to have a drink with him, though Raguna doesn't favor drinking that much, Jasper invited him to a big feast where he caught several glares at him by Bianca, Melody accidentally peeked at him when he slipped in the bath house (the both felt a little awkward around each other the next day but they got over it), and Rosetta's still teasing him and Mist about the other day when he went into her shop to pick up some more seeds, of course Lukas was there and annoyed Rosetta too, although Raguna started to twitch a little also.

"So it's the middle of your second week in Kardia and you've been doing well here," Godwin told him while walking down the streets with Raguna.

"Yeah, well I probably couldn't have gotten this far without Mist's help and everyone else's kindness."

"I guess Mist chose well for a person to tend to her farm. She's a little odd at times but deep down, she's a good girl at heart."

"Yeah, I guess, hehe."

"Well, I guess I could give you this pass here to start exploring the Carmite cave."

"Thanks a lot Mayor!"

"Just be careful in there, Dr. Edward's not a warrior and he can't go into caves to save you."

"Okay, I understand." Though now Raguna has a problem, he could probably use his hoe like he did last time but chances are that the monsters he heard about in the cave were many times stronger than the one he fought before.

"I'm really sorry Raguna, but Zavier took the last available spell book with him," Russell said regrettably.

"I guess that's fine, do you at least have anything I could possibly use?"

"Well, I do have an extra escape spellbook if you want it, I really don't have any use for it anymore so you can have it if you want."

"Really? Thanks!"

"Just think of it as a belated welcoming present." And so now he had a spellbook that he could use but now he needs a sword, so he decided to pay a visit to Leo.

"Sorry lad, I can't make it any cheaper than that, I don't have a lot of material since there aren't a lot of people here who goes into those caves."

"Are you sure?"

"I'd be 'appy to just give you a sword but I haven't constructed one in a while, not since Zavier asked for another one after he gone and broke the previous one I forged for him."

"I guess if that's the only way."

"Tell you what lad, I have an extra hammer you can use for crushing rocks, mining and can be used as a weapon like that axe you've got there. But just wait til tomorrow cause I'll get some materials for the sword you wanted."

"Okay thanks." So he decided to use the rest of the day to explore. Which at first lead him towards the Carmite cave and explore very little of it, so he reached the entrance of it and saw some sort of weird device and it's teleporting monsters.

"What is that?"

"Mist? What are you doing here?"

"I heard you were going into Carmite cave so I decided to see what's up, and I'm glad I did, is that the reason for that monster on the farm last week?"

"I'm not sure, but it's coming for us!" Raguna pulled out his axe, which was a lot heavier than the hoe he used before, so he fumbled around for a bit until he finally killed it, "Okay, that does it."

"Raguna, I think another one's coming after us."

"What?" Another monster appeared out of nowhere and tried to attack Raguna, luckily he blocked the sword with his axe but then got swatted away from the monster's open hand.

"Raguna!" Mist ran towards him in order to protect him and before the monster swung down, it disappeared and teleported away and standing behind it was Zavier sheathing his sword.

"Well, there goes another one," Zavier said, dusting off his gloves and then looking at the two of them with Mist holding tightly on to him. "Um… did I miss something?" while he seemed calm, for the most part, in him mind he's panicking thinking _"Oh god, oh god, oh god, Mist likes Raguna already? But it's only been a week!"_

"Uh, Zavier?" Raguna noticed that Zavier was actually panicking out in the open. And then Zavier forgot to notice another monster sneak up behind him. "Zavier, behind you!" Raguna immediately took Zavier's sword and sent the monster away and at the same time destroyed the strange machine. "okay, I think that should be the last of them."

"Wow, you're pretty skilled with a sword Raguna." Mist stated, oblivious to Zavier's reactions.

"_What? She's praising him too? I won't lose Mist to him! I'll impress her with my sword skills!"_ unaware at the fact that he started mumbling to himself.

"Um… Zavier, you're talking to yourself again…"

"What?" he started to panic again _"Oh no… did she hear what I said?!"_ but actually regained his composure and actually started talking normally again. "Ahem, well, we're probably not see anyone monsters for a while."

"Why is that?" Raguna asked.

"Well, from what I got, that strange device is what is spawning the monsters."

"Really? I wouldn't guess that they would decide to put it back while we're not looking are they?"

"Actually they do, I destroyed this one and the one after it and after about a day or so, I see the same machines I took out."

"I see, so take these out and they put one back in… but who are putting these in?" Mist thought about it for a second and came up with an answer.

"What about the Sechs Empire?" She wondered

"You mean that mechanized empire near us, it couldn't be, we have nothing here that they want."

"I guess you're right, but what are we going to do?"

"The only thing we can do, take these things out and get to the bottom of this mess," Raguna told the both of them.

"I guess we can't do much about it now, I'm going to go to the bath house now, I'll see you two later." And with that, Mist left the cave and seeing that there wasn't much they had to do here, Raguna and Zavier decided to leave. At least they were until…

"Well here's your sword back," Raguna handed back Zavier's sword, but then Zavier yelled…

"I will surpass you and Mist will be impressed with me! I'll win her back from you!"

"But I," a confused Raguna said, "we're not…"

"I know you like Mist and I know Mist likes you too! Rosetta and everyone else said so!"

"_Well, that explains a lot"_ Raguna thought, slightly annoyed. "Look, Zavier I just met Mist about a week ago and we're just friends…" is what he says but… _"He's not listening isn't he…"_

"We may be friends but I will win Mist's heart."

"I don't think it's right to make this like a competition… and he's walking away and not listening to me again…" but it was true, he didn't like Mist like that the way Zavier does… at least that's what he told himself. _"But maybe… I think… I mean I think she's cute and all… but…"_ though while thinking about this he walked outside and relized that it is still the middle of the day, so he decided to walk around the outskirts of town a little bit more and eventually reached the Kasimir Ruins and found someone there.

"Oh, I didn't expect to have a visitor here."

"I didn't expect to see anyone here."

"You are not afraid?"

"Why would I be? I mean after Mist, you can't really get any weirder than her."

"Oh, I see you've met Sharron!" Raguna turned around to see Melody standing near where Sharron and Raguna are. "Sharron, this is Raguna, he's the one I talked about the other day."

"I see, you're the one with the lost memory like her."

"Melody, you lost your memory too?" said a surprised Raguna.

"Well, yeah, I come to talk to Sharron a lot because… she's like me, she doesn't have any parents and I lost mine about a year ago."

"Oh… I'm sorry Melody…"

"But, I know I'm not alone because I have her, and you and everyone else in the town."

"Yeah, I guess that's true."

"Oh was this also that one boy you were talking about yesterday?"

"What are you talking about Sharron?" asked a curious Melody

"You know the one you accidentally peeked at and said that he had a nice…" and somehow Melody immediately ran at light speed to shut Sharron's mouth and her whole body was bright red.

"hehehe… let's not talk about it here…" Melody whispered trying to make sure that Raguna didn't hear a word out of Sharron's mouth about that time where Melody accidentally peeked at Raguna, hoping that wouldn't make such an awkward moment like that time before.

"_Hey Melody, I'm taking a bath here today, here's the 10G."_

"_Okay! The changing room is off to the right as always." About 20 minutes later, Raguna got out of the bath, unfortunately, Melody forgot to mention that she had everything cleaned recently so about a couple seconds after getting out, Raguna slipped and fell. His yell made Melody a bit concerned so, forgetting that the side Raguna was in was for guys only, she ran into the room._

"_Hey, are you all…" obviously cut off by the fact that Raguna was sitting there with only a towel, she and Raguna were just staring at each other for about five seconds until the both of them screamed their lungs out. It was loud enough to be heard by Mist where, at the time, was at her house and was the furthest away from the bath house. The both of them were so embarrassed, the more or less started to glow this really deep shade of red. "Um… uh… I'm sorry… I didn't… oh… wow…. Uh…"_

"_um… I'm just… going to… get my clothes now…" so he ran into the changing room, quickly put on his clothes and then started to walk out. "Um… thanks for… uh… the bath… and…"_

"_No problem, I uh… hope you come back soon… yeah… uh…" The both of them felt too embarrassed to talk to each other at this point so then Raguna just left only to find Camus right there about to go in to see what happened._

"_Hey Raguna, did anything happen in there, I heard a loud scream, is everything okay?" said a concerned Camus._

"_Yeah… uh… everything's just fine, I… uh… gotta go now… sorry." And with that, Raguna just ran out of there leaving Camus a bit curious, so he walked inside to talk to Melody about it._

"_Hey, is everything alright in here? I heard screaming and…"_

"_Oh, um… Me and Raguna… just saw something we probably shouldn't have…"_

"_You mean like a spider or something?"_

"_Yeah… sure… I guess you could s-say that… maybe something bigger..."_

Fortunately for Melody, Raguna didn't catch on to what Sharron was going to say… "So Raguna, how's the farm lately?"

"It's going along pretty nicely, I mean I get a lot of help from Mist too."

"Really, that's pretty great."

"Melody also tells me that you are about to go into the Carmite cave," Sharron asked.

"Yeah, it's a lot harder than I thought, I mean I haven't bought a sword yet so I really shouldn't say that now."

"But still I can see some potential in you."

"Yeah, Mist said the same thing."

"You know, speaking of Mist," Melody said smiling, "how are things between you two? Hehehe."

"Not you too…" Raguna obviously a bit annoyed that everyone thinks that the both of them like each other and are dating "look, we're not dating…"

"But you like her don't you?"

"Well yeah I like her," Raguna said, realizing the statement he forgot to rephrase, "I mean, not like that… I like her as a friend and that's it for now."

"So you're saying that you might hook up with her eventually?" Raguna realized that he can't fight this so he sighed and decided to leave.

"I'm going to… leave now… I guess I'll see you guys later."

"Okay later!" And both Sharron and Melody both waved at Raguna as he made his way back home. On the way there, he saw Mist heading towards town and decided to talk to her.

"Hey Mist, wait up!" He obviously got her attention as she turned towards him and he ran towards her after she looked. "What are you doing waking towards the town?" he asked when caught up to her.

"Oh, I'm just heading to Jean and Rosetta's place to pick up some things; I think they said they had a couple of accessories I might like too."

"Really now," Raguna responded sounding a bit curious, "oh by the way, I got something for you, I know you like radishes so before I stashed the other ones away, I saved one for you." And out of his bag was a fresh (and oddly clean) radish.

"Oh Raguna, thank you so much!"

"It's no big deal, I just had a lot at the time and I," Raguna stopped after looking at the sky, "Oh, sorry Mist, you should hurry and get that stuff, the sun is starting to set."

"Oh, I guess I'll see you tomorrow then!" Mist started running off towards the town hoping there was still daylight. Raguna just stared at her for a while and Mist stopped for a second to look back at him before continuing to run to the shop.

At that time the both of them were thinking, _"How do I feel about you…this isn't right... I just met you and I…"_


	3. Third Week of Spring: Spring Festival

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harvest Moon or Rune Factory…**

**Life on the Mist Farm**

**Third Week of Spring: Spring Festival**

It was a Tuesday and Raguna was finishing up his work for the day, he just sewn new seeds into the ground and watered them and now he was ready to ship them off. Then Lukas started to walk towards the farm.

"Hey Raguna, still farming I see," Lukas said.

"Yeah, I'm just finishing up."

"I see, and has my sweet Rosetta come yet?"

"Um… not yet, but she does come around sunset to pick up the shipments."

"Oh well, I guess she's still in her shop then right."

"I believe so."

"Oh thank you Raguna!" and the young poet started walking off in a singsongy voice for Rosetta trying to make up a song while back at the farm…

"Okay, he's gone, you can come out now." Rosetta walked out of the house looking slightly ticked off, obviously ticked off at Lukas for his many attempts at wooing her with, what she thought was, horrible poetry.

"Thanks for letting me use your house as cover," Rosetta said coming out of his house, "I seriously think that man has no other hobby but come and torture me."

"C'mon now, he seems to really like you."

"Exactly my point, I know he likes me, it just doesn't seem to sink in his head that I don't exactly like him."

"I guess I see your point, and he isn't exactly a workaholic, the fact that he still lives in Lady Ann's Inn is beyond me."

"Well, he did say something about being a decent fisher if it counts for anything, he's still a horrible poet though…"

"Well, he's not really that bad now is he?" after a couple seconds of thought and an awkward glare by Rosetta he corrected himself saying, "okay he's that bad, but still, you can't exactly blame him for trying now can you."

"sigh I guess your right," realizing that Lukas is still a guy in love, but she still hates him. "Oh by the way, you remember what Friday is right?"

"…not really," a confused Raguna said.

"Oh right, I forgot, you're still new here. Friday's the Spring Festival."

"What's that?"

"It's this one festival where all of the guys in town give cookies to the girl they like, it's the first one in the year after New Years so it's somewhat big."

"Oh really, but I don't have any cookies or an oven. I just installed a kitchen just recently but Ivan said that I had to make my house bigger if I wanted to install in oven. And besides, I don't really do well with cooking."

"That's okay; I think some of the people here can help you with making a cookie. Besides, I think I know who you're going to give it to, young girl around our age, bright blond hair with a ribbon, blue eyes," It didn't take Raguna long to realize who she was talking about.

"C'mon, quit teasing, you know we're not…"

"I'm not teasing, it's the truth. Oh, it's getting late, I better get the shipment and get home now," and with that, she took the shipment and walked towards her house, "Later Raguna."

"Yeah, later Rosetta." He waved at her as she waved back though he was still irked at the fact that she was still teasing him about Mist. But now he had another problem, who is going to help him bake a cookie. He surely didn't have the equipment, much less the ability, to make it on his own but who was he going to ask.

The next day, he decided to look for someone to help him, so he woke up earlier that day to finish his normal chores early to make the most of looking for someone to help him. About the time he finished, Mist showed up as usual.

"Hey Raguna, you got a minute?" Raguna ran up to her putting down his axe for a second.

"Yeah, what's up?"

"Well could you help me make a cake real fast?" Raguna didn't expect this to happen, though a couple minutes wouldn't hurt too much, however…

"Mist, you know how bad I am at cooking."

"It's okay, I just need you to stir something while I go out to buy something real fast."

"That's it?"

"That's it." So he decided to go into her house to stir the cake mix for a while during which Mist was going to the town to buy something for the cake. Though something seemed off.

"_That's funny, I might not be an expert on cakes but it seems like she has everything she needs in here,"_ he thought for a second. About several minutes later, Mist came back with a small bag full of something.

"Hey Raguna, how's it stirring?" Raguna obviously amused by her awful pun.

"It's going well…" though he was thinking _"wow that was bad… almost as bad as Lukas's puns… but it does kind make her cute though."_ Raguna at this point was staring at her a little bit after that, almost lovingly and romantically, until he noticed the bag she apparently went to get. "So what's inside the bag?"

"Oh it's nothing too wild, just a chopped up radish I bought from Rosetta's place." He probably could guess but really didn't want to say it.

"You're not planning on putting those radish bits into the cake mix are you?"

"Yep" Mist responded almost immediately. "It's my personal radish cake!"

"Radish cake?" Raguna asked.

"Yeah, I mean it combines two of my favorite things, cakes and radishes!"

"Oh, really." Raguna said cautiously, "well I got some other things to do so…" Raguna was slowly trying to make it out the door because unless he doesn't the he would probably end up…

"Do you want to try it after I finish cooking it?" Too late, he could never say no to people who ask him stuff like that, especially Mist, and now he's stuck.

"Well, I've got some things to do ha ha…" Obviously trying to hide the fact that he doesn't want to try it. "But I would like to try it though…" which was a big lie, but he had to now.

"Okay, I'll come by later k'?"

"Okay…" After walking out of Mist's house, he decided to go back to what he was doing and ask someone to help him with baking cookies. After much thinking, he decided to start off by going to Lady Ann's house, it made sense to him since Zavier must have given cookies to Mist before right?

"He hasn't given a cookie to anyone period," Lady Ann told Raguna.

"Why's that?"

"Well… he's not exactly what I like to call brave. He always freaks out when he's giving cookies to Mist and the other times he forgot was day it was and ended up going into the caves."

"Oh… I see…" It seemed somewhat dumb to Raguna that Zavier, who he knows likes Mist a lot, wouldn't give Mist a cookie, "So I guess that means you don't know how to bake them right?" Raguna said a bit disappointed.

"Now I didn't say that did I?" Lady Ann said pepping Raguna up again. "I would be glad to help you. But not today, I'm cleaning up the inn right now, how about tomorrow, around midday."

"That would be great, thank you!"

And so they said their goodbyes for the day and Raguna left to go back to his house. He was a little bit excited, sure it was just some cookies and it was just some event but, for some reason, he felt happy about it. At least it wouldn't be those other times he tried to cook…

"_Raguna hurry, put it out!"_

"_I'm trying Mist… aw man, I'm sorry I burnt the food and it caught on fire… I'll get better and this won't happen again."_

However… soon after that little moment…

"_Raguna hurry, put it out!"_

"_I'm trying Mist… How did put this on fire again?"_

Although the weirdest one was when…

"_Raguna hurry, put it out!"_

"_I'm trying Mist…wait..."_

"_What's wrong Raguna?"_

"_How in the world does a sashimi catch on fire when we're nowhere near the stove or oven?"_

Either way, he sucks at cooking anything and hopefully Lady Ann would help him with that problem. And then…

"Hey Raguna, I'm done with my cake here!" and much to his surprise, it looked edible. Until he actually ate it. He ended up running to his house and stayed in there for a while. Mist seemed somewhat disappointed that Raguna didn't like it so she ended up trying it herself, "I didn't make it that bad did I?" after trying the cake herself, "Oh no!" She went inside to find him with a stomach ache. She helped him into bed and decided to tuck him in. "I'm so sorry, I didn't think that the radish would make the cake react that way, and besides, I think I burned the radish parts."

"No, its okay, its not everyday that you get food poisoned by radishes and cakes…"

"I'm so sorry…"

"Mist, don't worry about it, you didn't know this would happen, it probably would have ended up worse had I made it."

"Raguna… you're way too nice… I almost made you sick…"

"Yeah, there is that… but I'll be okay, I just need some sleep." And that's what he did while Mist stayed to make sure he went to sleep.

"_You know, he looks really cute when he's asleep…"_ she was thinking when she was walking out. She decided to walk back to his bed to take a better look at his face and found herself blushing at the very sight of him. _"um… I guess I should go home now before he wakes up and thinks that I'm stalking him or something…"_ and she exited the house and walked to her house.

The next day, Mist left early to go check on Raguna and found him back to normal working on the farm as usual.

"Oh hey Mist, what are you doing here early?"

"Well I'm just a little worried."

"I'm fine now, just remember to check the cake before giving it to me…"

"Yeah I guess," the both of them laughing at that statement, "So tomorrow's the Spring Festival, did you manage to make an edible cookie without burning it?"

"Heh, well not yet, but Lady Ann's going to help me out with that."

"Really? So do you know who you want to give it to yet?"

"Well…" Raguna looked like he was thinking about someone for a while.

"Well what?"

"It's a secret." She seemed a bit pouty but sighed as she realized that it was a little wrong to ask him something like that but she wanted to know. It was getting to be later in the day and Raguna wasn't done yet.

"Oh shoot, I told Lady Ann I would go visit her around now." Mist wanted to help him and repay him for the bad cake yesterday.

"Don't worry about it Raguna, you can go, I'll finish up for you."

"Are you sure? I mean there's not a lot left"

"It's okay, go ahead."

"I shouldn't, I mean…"

Mist casually walked over to him and picked up his hoe saying, "if you don't leave, I'll hit you over the head with this hoe." And with that he decided to leave. And so Mist started to finish farming the land. She had a little trouble by herself because it's been a long time since she actually worked on the farm by herself, about two season's worth. Recently though it was usually just Raguna working or the both of them together and she could feel that she was out of touch. While working on the farm, she had remembered how lonely she was working on the farm like this. _"I remember what this was like before Raguna came. I would just work on the farm, maybe visit Rosetta for more seeds and maybe hang out with the other girls. It was just me here."_ She slowed her pace down a little and started to tear up. Sure she had the townspeople as friends but she lived in the outskirts of town on a farm.

Especially during the Spring Festival, she used to be so nervous when she was younger because she wouldn't know who would bring her cookies and sometimes she would get cookies from more than one boy, even though most of the time those same boys would give other cookies to other girls too, but it was important because she knew they cared. But eventually everyone started to grow up and leave Kardia to start new lives. In recent years she never got one cookie for the Spring Festival from a boy. Rosetta would feel bad sometimes and would offer her one but she didn't want it because those were Rosetta's cookies, not hers. It was these days that at the end of the day, sometimes she would cry herself to sleep returning to her cheerful self in the morning even though she still had the pain.

Eventually she finished the work but grew extremely tired. She had forgotten how tiring farming was for her; it was fine for Raguna because he had a better build than she did. She decided to rest her body near the fence around the farm and slowly got more and more tired that she fell asleep. Eventually she started waking up only to find herself being carried by someone, she had her eyes squinting to try to make out who it was but it was a little dark to see. Eventually they reached her house and the person laid her down on her bed.

"You asleep Mist?"

"Raguna?" Eventually it became clearer who that person was.

"Sorry Mist it's me, Rosetta," she said "I was picking up the shipment for that day but I found you sleeping near the fence. I was a little worried so I carried you home."

"Oh, thank you Rosetta."

"Sorry I'm not your boyfriend but I could at least help you out a little more."

"We're not dating Rosetta," Mist yelled apparently having enough energy to yell at Rosetta. Though she did have a big yawn afterwards.

"Hey just go to sleep for now okay, I'll see you tomorrow okay?"

"Okay, later." And a little while after Rosetta left, Mist fell asleep.

The next day was the Spring Festival and Mist woke up a little late. She walked out and decided to go into town and maybe see who got cookies. Of course she stopped by the farm to check on Raguna, unfortunately he wasn't there today. _"Oh right, I forgot he's probably going to give some cookies to someone today."_ Mist thought about going in and doing the farm work again today but she felt that it was alright just to leave it alone today. She found several people paired off for the day.

"Hey Melody," a shy Camus said.

"Oh hey Camus, why do you look so shy,"

"Um… here…" Camus gave her his bag of cookes. She gleefully opened them up only to find that they were squares.

"Um… why are these cookies a little misshapen?"

"Well, I didn't have the right cookie cutter so I ended up cutting them into squares…"

"Aww, that's sweet Camus," she gave him a hug for the cookies and Mist couldn't help but smile at them. If only the same could be said for Lukas and Rosetta. She found Lukas looking for Rosetta, as always.

"Hey Mist, you've seen Rosetta around?"

"No not today."

"Oh, you wouldn't mind accepting them instead would you?"

"Wouldn't that make you a pig then?" Mist said rather annoyed.

"I guess so and a person like me should not be regarded as a 'pig', well, I'll be off then." So he again walked off to look for Rosetta, although…

"Hey Rosetta, you can come out now." Rosetta emerged from the bushes once again hiding from Lukas.

"My god, Lukas has a thicker skull than a rock."

"He's still chasing after you? You probably should accept his cookies this year."

"I did that two years ago, I didn't like his cookies. It looked burnt and he decided to put blueberries in it."

"Oh… who would do that hahaha…" remembering her radish cake from the other day.

"Oh well, I guess I'll go inside now."

"Wait, Rosetta, have you seen Raguna today?"

"Oh you want to get your cookies from him?"

"No I… he wasn't on the farm today so I got a little worried."

"Don't worry about it; he's probably looking for you right now, besides if you don't see him today, he'll probably be there tomorrow."

"I guess…"

"Don't worry about it, okay? Later." After Rosetta went inside, Mist decided to go to the beach as she always had before. On the way she found Cecilia with a bag of cookies on her.

"Oh hi Mist!"

"Hey Ceci, I see you got some cookies, are they from Nicolas?"

"Yep, he's my best friend so why not?"

"That's great!"

"Did you not get any cookies this year?"

"No… not yet…"

"Here you go!" Cecilia pulled out a cookie and decided to hand it off to Mist.

"Ceci… I can't, Nicolas gave it to you and…"

"I insist…" though a bit hesitant, she decided to take it.

"Thank you Ceci."

"You're welcome; I hope someone else will give you a cookie too."

She walked to the pier and decided to eat her cookie there. It pained her greatly cause she ended up lonely again and started crying, and then heard a voice behind her. "So there you were, I had a feeling you were here." She wiped her eyes and looked behind her to see Raguna standing there. "oh I see you already got some cookies from someone else."

"No, Ceci gave it to me…"

"Huh? How come?"

"Well she saw that I didn't get any cookies from anyone so she gave me one of hers she got from Nicolas."

"Oh really… you mean until now right?"

"What do you mean?" He took out his own bag of cookies and gave it to her.

"Raguna? Why are you giving me this?"

"Because, I wanted to thank you…"

"Thank me? I should be thanking you for this."

"Well, I just wanted to thank you for everything you've done for me so far. You gave me a new life when I really didn't have a life at all. And you've been there for me since the beginning."

"I really didn't do that much… but thank you for the cookies Raguna." She stood up ran up to him and hugged him tightly, not too tightly that Raguna couldn't breathe but she wanted to stay there for the rest of the day.

"Mist…" he seemed really touched that she really appreciated what he did for her until she remembered…

"These cookies are eatable right?"

"Yeah, Lady Ann and I tried it first and we thought it was alright."

"That's a relief."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You know what that means…" the continued arguing about Raguna's lack of cooking skill though it was very friendly. And that entire time she was thinking, _"Thank you so much Raguna, for everything. I won't be lonely anymore because I know you're there."_


	4. Fourth Week of Spring: Carmite Cave

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harvest Moon or Rune Factory…**

**Life on the Mist Farm**

**Fourth Week of Spring: Carmite Cave**

Mist woke up from her bed a little more tired than usual. She splashed water on her face, changed and then went off to check on the farm. She arrived only to find that Raguna wasn't there. She went inside of the house to find that it was empty too. Mist started to get worried so she ran into town asking everyone where Raguna was.

"Raguna? Can't say I've seen him lately," Godwin told her.

"I wouldn't know," Bianca said.

"I don't follow him around like a sick puppy," Rosetta said

She finally ended up asking Lady Ann after asking everyone else. "Oh, I think he might be with Zavier, he left the other day to the Carmite Cave and hasn't come back yet."

"Wait? Zavier hasn't come back yet either?"

"I believe so, if Raguna hasn't come back yet either."

"Wait, you mean Raguna left for the cave yesterday?"

"Yeah, I saw him run towards the cave yesterday too so I assumed."

Inside the Carmite Cave (yesterday), Raguna walked in to find that the strange machine that he destroyed several weeks ago was replaced and is sending out monsters again. And like last time he sent the monster away and destroyed the machine. It was like that for a while, excluding the times where he got lost, a lot. Until he reached one part of the cave where there were giant insects everywhere. He tried using his magic attack with his sword but that made him even more exhausted. But then out of nowhere several fireballs were shot at the insects. Raguna started to hear the incantation again and followed the voice to the source of the attack.

"Hey Raguna, you need help there?"

"Zavier? What are you doing here?"

"Exploring the caves as usual, and apparently saving your butt from these insects from what I see."

"Thanks…" Raguna started to feel a little bit dizzy so he leaned on a wall. Zavier seemed concerned so he ran to Raguna and pulled out one of his potions.

"Here, take this…" Zavier opened the cap and helped Raguna drink the potion and he was able to recover enough and was able to breathe normally again.

"Thanks, I couldn't reach the one in my bag…"

"Don't worry about it, I've been here many times."

"How long have you been here for?"

"Well, a long time ago, about a couple…"

"I meant just now…"

"Oh, I would say about a few hours by now. When I went in it was mid afternoon so by now it's probably dark."

"You don't suppose we can camp out here tonight do you?"

"We could, but I think there are some monster summoning machines around this area. I don't think they'll come after us on a different floor so we just have to take out the ones here."

"That's fine, we can take it out together."

"Are you sure, you looked weak when I saved you."

"I got something left in me, let's go."

And so the two of them decided to fight off what was left of the monsters and the machines on the floor before going off to sleep. Unfortunately, these things were sending out monsters as if the thing was on high. Afterwards the two explorers were exhausted that they just laid down on the ground.

"So… How many… did you beat?" Zavier asked Raguna.

"… I guess… about 40 of them… possibly…"

"Ha… I won… I got 45 of them…"

"So… It must be pretty late, I'm going to go to sleep now…"

"Yeah, me too…"

The both of them pulled out their sleeping bags and got ready to go to sleep.

"So, Raguna… do you really like Mist?"

"Where did this come from?" a shocked Raguna asked

"Just answer it…"

"Well… I mean… I like her and all…"

"A-HA! I KNEW IT!" Zavier yelled as he sit up and pointed at Raguna.

"Well, not in that sense… I like her as a friend, that's all."

"Then why'd you give her cookies during the Spring Festival?"

"WHAT? HOW DID YOU KNOW?"

"Oh, Rosetta told me…"

"You know, Rosetta has got to stop doing this…"

"That and Cecilia saw the whole thing." Raguna gave Zavier a confused look on his face. "Why are you looking at me like that?" with a confused face himself none the less, but he continued, "How do you even feel about her?"

"I mean, she saved me… at first I thought it was just that, she saved me and I guess I kinda felt guilty for taking her farm, even though she insisted. But then we hung out on the farm a lot, she taught me how to be a better farmer, she helped me out sometimes and she really became a really close friend to me, and I think…" Raguna stopped because he was starting to feel uncomfortable… he didn't know why, he thought that he was just tired.

"I guess then that makes me your rival for Mist's heart."

"What? But we shouldn't make this into some sort of competition! I mean, not that I like her like that…"

"It's not a competition, but I will win her over with my skill…"

"Doesn't that make you seem like those macho guys that a lot of girls hate?"

"No because I have the skill to back it up. Besides, I really like her, for a long time." Raguna widened his eyes when he said this and then closed his eyes as if he didn't want to hear what he just said.

"_He really feels that strongly about Mist… I shouldn't be this way, I should be fine that he likes her… besides, I don't like her like that, right? But then… why am I in pain, why do I feel like crying… how do I really feel about Mist…"_ There was something he didn't want to admit to Zavier or to himself, or maybe he wasn't aware of it at the time. But no matter how many ways he denied it or tried to ignore it, the truth was, he was feeling somewhat jealous.

The next day (which would be today chronologically), Raguna woke up from his sleeping bag only to find a note where Zavier was sleeping.

_Dear Raguna,_

_If you found this letter, that most likely means that I'm not here any more. I woke up earlier than you so I decided to take a quick look around the area. It still clear of monsters but then I took another look around and heard this loud roaring sound coming from the next basement floor. It sounded like some sort of large beast was down there. So I decided to cut my losses here and go back to the town, I obviously want some of my mother's delicious food. So I left, if I were you, I would run too, but you'll probably want to search for the ores and stuff in here. Oh and I also taken the liberty of replacing your empty potion bottles with my full potion bottles._

_Later,_

_Zavier_

"You know, you could have just said, 'I'm a wuss and I left' and not make me read this thing…" Raguna said. He was a bit irritated that Zavier left him in a cave to fend off the remaining monsters. But one thing did intrigue him a little. "But what was with that loud roar that Zavier mentioned? It shouldn't be anything bad right?" Unfortunately his luck, is a lot worse than his cooking. But he decided to go though the rest of the cave and see what was this beast he was referring to, or did Zavier try to find some sort of stupid excuse to leave. Unfortunately Zavier's letter was right; Raguna heard this loud beast like roar. Unlike Zavier, Raguna wanted to figure out what that was so he decided to decend to the next underground level. There he found many more monsters wishing Zavier was here to help him.

Eventually he got to the end of the cave to find a sealed door disappear before his eye opening up to a large dark hallway. Another loud roar shook the caves a little bit. But Raguna caught attention to the roar itself. "Something feels weird about that roar… its as if something's wrong with it…" So he decided to run into that hallway to see what is inside it, only to be followed by someone with a backpack full of magic books.

When he got inside he was awe struck at what he sees before him.

"No way, is that a Greater Demon?" He was somewhat surprised that he remembered that but is even more surprised at who and how did they even summon a Greater Demon here. But then Raguna noticed something. "It looks like its in pain… I guess then I have to take it out and send it back." And so Raguna decided to charge the Greater Demon. He was able to slash the Greater Demon a couple times but Raguna discovered that this thing was tougher than all of the other monsters he had fought. Unfortunately, he found out its strength as well and Raguna was swatted to the wall. The Greater Demon started to come towards Raguna and proceeded to punch him some more. And then he heard some incantations.

"Droplets of the air collide into one and shoot your water into a stream. Water Laser!" a pressurized water stream shot out of the hallway leading to this area knocking the Greater Demon away from Raguna.

"Who… is that?" Raguna asked. And then a person walked into the room and to his surprise… "Mist? What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing… I didn't see you on the farm, so I realized that you were in the caves. Although along the way I noticed that Zavier was lost so I helped him get out." Mist noticed a couple things. Some of his clothes were torn and most importantly, she saw some blood stains on his clothes and in some places where he was cut. She ran towards him to hopefully help his wounds. "Are you okay? Where are your potions?"

"Well… I didn't think I would be fighting this thing so I used them up already."

"Here take mine." She helped him drink up the potion and was able to heal some of his wounds. But the Greater Demon started to attack again. This time Raguna was able to fight a lot better than he was originally. That is until he mad it go berserk.

"Hey Mist, what's going on?"

"I think it's going berserk… watch out!" The Greater Demon started to swing its arms everywhere and ram into walls. Then it started to charge Raguna but he was able dodge the attack. But he failed to notice that Mist was in the way of that attack. Mist noticed this and started to run but got tripped by the falling debris. She got up and tried to run again but it was too late. She felt paralyzed by the Greater Demon charging at her but then she got pulled away by Raguna and the next thing she saw was Raguna getting crushed by the Greater Demon. She was in complete shock but she calmed down enough to cast Aqua Laser again. She knew that if she just keeps casting her spells, eventually the Greater Demon will get her too. So she ran to Raguna in order to help her with one more spell to cast the Greater Demon away.

"Raguna… will you help me cast something?"

"Why? Can you not cast anymore?"

"No, I can possibly make this spell stronger but you need to cast the spell at the same time I do."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, but we have to hurry." She pulled out a different spell book and opened it to prepare for the spell, "here just read this line to chant the spell"

The two of them began to read the incantation for the spell, but the Greater Demon started to charge at the both of them, "Ignite the flames and become the spheres of destruction, Fireball!" Immediately several fireballs struck down the Greater Demon and like Mist said, these fireballs had more impact than normal ones. But these flames also pushed back Raguna and Mist to the wall. Luckily the Greater Demon disappeared and they were able to finally rest from that experience.

"Is it gone?" Raguna weakly said.

"Yeah, we beat it, it's gone back to the first forest."

"That's good…" Raguna slowly closed his eyes and ended up laying on her lap

"Raguna? Are you okay?" Mist said as she started to shake him. "Raguna? This isn't funny…" This caused her to shake more vigorously. She lifted him and sat him up and started to yell his name repeatedly. She took a good look at him and she noticed all of the blood on him. "Raguna! Wake up! Please! Wake Up!" She realized now what had happened and started to cry, "Raguna don't leave me! Raguna! RAGUNA!!"


	5. Fifth Week of Spring: Stormy Day

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harvest Moon or Rune Factory…**

**Life on the Mist Farm**

**Fifth Week of Spring: Stormy Day**

"Huh? What's going on? Where am I?" Raguna opened his eyes to find that the room he is in is very white. He couldn't remember what had happened until he tried to get up. "Ugh… oh… that's right, I was fighting the Greater Demon… but where am I now?" he looked around a little bit more to eventually find Dr. Edward and Lara.

"Ah, so you're finally up," Dr. Edward said, "you made that girl there worried."

"Huh?" it was then Raguna felt a little weight on one of his legs. There Mist was sleeping right next to him with her head on his leg. "Has she been with me the entire time I was here?"

"Well, yeah, but she did have to tend to your farm while you were here."

"Wait," a concerned Raguna said "how long was I out for?"

"For about several days," Lara responded, "if I had to guess, I have to say about four days."

"What!? I was out that long?"

"Yeah," Dr. Edward said, "in fact, I'm a bit surprised that you woke up at all. Mist helped carry you the entire way here."

"Mist did?" Raguna couldn't help but be touched by what she did. She took him from the caves to the clinic all the while he was out. "How bad were my wounds?"

"Well, I guess you could say you were lucky she got you here as soon as she did," Lara told him in a serious tone. "you had a lot of bruises, cuts and you were also bleeding a lot. We did everything we could and seeing you up means we did our jobs right."

"Thanks I…" But then Lara cut him off, fairly angry but for the most part concerned.

"Don't ever do something like that again! Had Mist ran away or disappeared or even not had been there period, you could have died and I… we would…" to angry to speak to him, Lara walked out of the room in order to get something. Raguna knew she was just worried about him.

"Don't mind her, she's just scolding you because she cares about you," Dr. Edward said, "its not like she doesn't want to help people, she works hard at what she does. I've worked with several patients and sometimes when someone like you comes in all battered up like that, it breaks her heart sometimes. She knows she can't stop them but at least she can feel a little better if all they have is just a cold."

"Yeah, if I were her, I'd probably do the same thing, though with less yelling." During this time, Mist started to wake up, she looked around to find Raguna staring at her. "Hey sleepy head."

"Raguna! You're up!" Mist was really happy at this point so she ended up going up and hugging him, on the bed. "I was so worried!"

"I'm okay… but I can't breathe…" Mist accidentally jumped on to his stomach and he was having a hard time breathing.

"Oh… sorry…" Mist felt a little embarrassed about what she did but she was so happy that he was alive.

"Hey Mist, could you come help me get something real fast," asked Lara

"Sure, hold on a second." Mist got up from Raguna and ran towards Lara to help her out leaving Dr. Edward and Raguna by themselves.

"So what was Mist doing while I was out?"

"Well since you weren't on the farm for several days she took it upon herself to do the farming for you until you got better."

"What? She did?"

"And afterwards she would come here to check on you and stay the night. By the time Camus came home, she would be sleeping by your bedside."

"But… she… did she get sick at any time."

"Yeah, well, recently she would come in a little bit dizzy. We would help her out but she said that our focus should be on helping you…"

"…I feel a little bit guilty now…"

"Don't be, you'd do the same for her would you."

"Well yeah, of course."

"Then you shouldn't feel guilty right?"

"But still… she shouldn't have done all this for me…"

"She's always like this, if I didn't know better, I would think that she was Lara with blonde hair."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, there was one time when Russell had to leave for the weekend and Mist decided to take care of Cecilia on her own as well as the library for the time he was out. And there was one time where she helped Lady Ann with her Inn, and then…"

"Okay, I get it, she's a really helpful person."

"But sometimes she would be too happy, it's sad really, she really ended up growing up by herself, at times I wonder if she's just doing all of this stuff to occupy her mind."

"What happened?"

"I'm not too sure since I haven't been in Kardia as long as she has, I'm sure if you talk to her about it, she would tell you."

"Okay, I guess that will work." Raguna seemed really curious about what Mist went though when she was younger. During that time, Mist and Lara were trying to look for a medicine in her room that might be able to help Raguna recover at home now that he's conscious. During that time Lara decided to ask Mist about something that was on her mind for a while.

"Hey, Mist, are you in love with Raguna?" Mist was somewhat shocked by what she said.

"haha… what makes you say that?"

"Well, you've never done this much for anyone else before, so I kinda just assumed."

"Well… no… I don't love him…"

"You at least care about him right?"

"Of course I do! I mean… he's a friend, why wouldn't I?"

"You know for a guy who's just working on your farm, you seem to be very interested in helping him on a more personal level."

"He has potential to be a great farmer."

"Yes, but if he had all of that potential, why do you do so much for him. I mean, you didn't do this much for anyone else."

"… it's just"

"You like him right? And in your heart you think he could be the one…"

"Lara…"

"You just think about that for a while okay? We're going to head back."

"You found what you came to get?"

"Yeah…" they were about to leave the chapel until Lara called Mist. "Hey Mist, could you stop for a second?"

"Okay, what's…" Lara came up to her and hugged her.

"Mist, I've known you for a long time, not as much as Rosetta but still…"

"Lara…"

"All of us here know that you've been though a lot and we all love you. Everyone may not believe this but I think you deserve to be happy. You've been lonely for so long, and I think that you really want Raguna to be that one…"

"Lara, you're talking crazy… but thank you…"

When both of them came back to the clinic, Lara gave him a bag full of medicinal herbs and the Doctor and Nurse saw them off. On the way back to the farm, Mist stopped and started talking to Raguna.

"You know…" Mist said while at the same time Raguna stopped to listen to her, "I was wondering… if you were some kind of swordsman before."

"Mist, you know that I wouldn't remember…"

"Right, but I just thought you looked so cool! I mean you were doing all of those cool moves and…" she rambled on for a while until she ran out of things to say.

"Mist, I wasn't that cool you know…"

"Yes you were, I knew it from the first day I met you."

"But I still almost got killed."

"Raguna… could you teach me how to fight some day?"

"Mist, you know I can't do that…"

"I know…" she felt a little bit depressed but she knew he wouldn't let her fight. The both of them started walking again before Mist decided to ask Raguna something.. "Hey Raguna, do you mind if I stay over with you tonight?"

"Huh?" Raguna blushed at that statement, "Uh… why would you do that?"

"Well, you're still injured, and I want to make sure you got better."

"But Mist, I barely have enough space in bed for two people."

"That's okay, I brought a sleeping bag."

Raguna sighed and then smiled at her, _"Well at least she's the same person. I guess that's okay as long as she isn't depressed, though I kinda wish she thought about the awkwardness about sleeping with me…"_

The both of them were too tired when they got to the house so they decided to go to sleep right away. The next day, Raguna woke up to find that Mist was in his kitchen obviously trying to cook something, though he doubts it would be anything normal. Raguna decided to start the day by checking on the crops. Before he reached the door, however, he felt this sharp pain on his side and had to kneel down.

"Raguna, are you okay?" a concerned Mist said as she ran towards him. "Raguna, please don't…"

"Mist, you know I have to do my work."

"It's okay, it's raining today, so you don't have to."

"But still…"

"Please don't… if you have something to do, I'll do it for you, okay?"

"Um… okay…" Raguna again felt a little guilty about putting Mist though all of this silently wishing he would get better. Just then Raguna heard a lot of wind coming from outside. "It doesn't sound like its raining… uh oh… Mist!"

After getting her back inside, she continued cooking while Raguna was put back in bed feeling that sharp pain again when trying to get back Mist. While cooking, Mist started singing to herself. Raguna couldn't help but stare at her when she was singing. Granted what she was cooking would hopefully taste well seeing as how she's taking a while to cook.

"Okay! Come and eat!" Raguna came to the kitchen to eat the food she cooked, though it looked a little weird.

"Are these eggs?"

"Yeah, what did you think they were?"

"I mean how in the world did you do this?" somehow, Mist was able to make the yolk look like a happy face, this made Raguna a little bit curious as people don't just make egg yolk look like a happy face. "Actually, I don't think I want to know…"

"So, how is it?"

"I didn't eat yet…"

"Oh sorry…" after taking a couple bites, she asked again only…

"It's okay, but why is there so much salt around the yolk?"

"Oh I didn't want to separate the yolk with just the utensils, so I used a lot of salt and peppers."

"… oh… oh… uh…" it tasted really salty so he ran to the faucet to try to wash away all of the salt from his mouth.

"I'm sorry… I didn't think it would be that salty…"

"Mist, how much salt did you use?"

"uh… a fourth of what you had?" he grabbed his toothbrush and after about an hour, finally got all of the salt off. "I'm so sorry Raguna…"

"It's okay… I know you didn't mean it."

"Raguna…" Mist started to look somewhat depressed.

"Hey, what's with that face?"

"I'm just worried about you… I thought I lost you in the Cave, and it would have been my fault…"

"I see, so that's what you were worried about huh?" Raguna walked over to her brushed her hair and put his hand on her shoulder and looked at her sympathetically, "If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't even be alive right now."

"Raguna, you nearly sacrificed yourself to save me."

"That's because if I lost you, I wouldn't be able to forgive myself." Mist looked at him surprised, how could he be so worried about her? "Mist, I'm not trying to be a gentleman or some sort of knight in shining armor, I don't want you to get hurt or anything, y-you mean a lot to me… if I couldn't save you, I probably wouldn't have been able to live with myself anymore…"

"Raguna…"

"Mist…" There was an awkward silence between the two of them for a while. Then Raguna decided to start another conversation. "Hey, do… you want me to cook something for you?"

"If you want, but you don't have much in your fridge right?"

"I can cook something… assuming I don't burn anything again…"

"haha, here let me help you." And so they ended up cooking lunch (not burning anything) and ended up talking for most of the day. Mist seemed really happy that she got to spend the entire day with Raguna just talking to him and being with him, the same with Raguna.

"Hey Mist I was wondering, how long have you been living here?"

"Well, I've been here for most of my life, I'm not sure exactly but for the most part, all of my life has been spent here in Kardia."

"Why are you living all by yourself then?" Mist was a little shocked by his question but she kind of expected it. She started to look a bit depressed again and Raguna picked up on it. "Sorry, if it's too hard for you, you don't have to…"

"I'm sorry, it's a little touchy for me."

"It's okay, don't push yourself."

"Would it be okay to talk about it when I'm ready?"

"Of course."

So the both of them ate dinner together and then went to bed for the day. The weather outside was still pretty bad but it eased up a little bit. Although it didn't help ease up Mist, as she looked a little uncomfortable while she was asleep.

_Mist saw herself walking into a cave. She thought it was really beautiful and at the same time very frightening. There she saw a door, it was just as beautiful as the cave around it. And then she found Raguna._

"_Raguna? W-what are you doing here?" she asked but for some reason he didn't respond. "Raguna… are you going inside?"_

_He nodded and told her, "I have to finish this, I don't want you involved."_

"_But, I don't want… you to leave I… we don't want you to die." He responded to this comment by turning around to face her, walking towards her and then embracing her. He said something to her but she couldn't hear it and she couldn't make out what he said by reading his mouth. He let go and started walking towards the door and opened it. Mist tried to reach out to him but when he entered the door, it closed shut. Mist ran towards the door in hopes to follow him but she couldn't open the door. So she started to bang the door but to no avail, her hands started bleeding and she dropped to the floor crying. "Raguna, come back! Don't leave! Please!"_

"Raguna!" she stood up from her sleeping bag. It was still pretty dark but light from the stars and a flame they decided to leave on made it light enough to see. She got pretty worried from her dream so she got out of her bag to check up on him. Luckily for her, he was still sleeping. _"Oh thank god…"_ she felt relieved, she thought she lost him again. But then again, in a storm like this, why would he go out? She caught herself staring at him like she did in the clinic. _"You know, staring at him like this, he really looks kind of cute…"_ she was a little embarrassed thinking like that and started blushing when returning to her sleeping bag.

The next morning, the both of them woke up to find that the crop field became a little bit messy.

"Aww man, I just finished cleaning this place up about a two weeks ago…" he sighed a little from that but was a little glad that the storm only took out a few of his crops and not all of them. "Jeez, this is going to take a while… hey Mist, do you want to help me out with this?"

"Sure, it would be my pleasure!" and so the two of them went out to start clearing out the field. "Hey Raguna, are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah, everything's alright for me here, thanks to you."

She blushed at that statement, "You're a strong person, I'm sure you could have been able to recover yourself." She caught herself staring at him again but this time she was happy that he was there working on the farm, as if none of this ever happened. She realized that he probably is going into the caves again, but assured herself that he was strong like some sort of hero from one of Tori's books, so she told herself that everything was going to be alright.


	6. Spring Intermission: Rosetta’s Story

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harvest Moon or Rune Factory…**

**Life on the Mist Farm**

**Spring Intermission: Rosetta's Story**

Rosetta was one of those girls who were in command of her life. She doesn't like it if anything goes wrong and she definitely doesn't like it when people like Lukas annoys her. But she was always a good girl, she just didn't show it. The only people who really knew her were Lara, Mist and Felicity, especially Mist who she grew up with and perhaps became her best friend and greatest rival. She always felt the need to surpass her, though she also knew that Mist at times was a bit of an airhead and wouldn't even notice the competition from Rosetta. But Mist had this spirit about her that made her very different from Rosetta. Mist was a weird girl and very oblivious to certain things around her but Mist was sort of this happy-go-lucky type girl who takes on life head on as opposed to Rosetta's realistic views which made her seem a little distant sometimes.

At times she seemed to really envy some of the other people in the village as well; Lara studied to be a nurse and is now assisting Dr. Edward, Bianca lived in a rich house so she could buy the whole village three times over, there were Cecelia and Nicolas who don't have a care in the world, and then there's the new guy, Raguna who somehow is able to manage an entire farm with only Mist helping him, and even without her help, he does really well. He's very friendly and is just as adventurous as Mist. He's hard working, considerate, down to earth, and everyone seems to like him. She knew about his qualities every time she would pick up his shipments and pick up things from her shop. But Rosetta also thought he was somewhat gullible seeing as how he accepted working on a farm from Mist of all people.

About the Monday two weeks after he started working on the farm, she decided to talk to him seeing as how she had some spare time on her hands.

"Hey Raguna!"

"Oh, Rosetta! What are you doing?"

"Getting your shipment of course."

"But it's still high noon…" It wasn't her best excuse, but it did catch his attention.

"Okay fine, you caught me… I just wanted to check up on you and maybe see how you were doing."

"Oh, I'm doing fine, thanks for asking."

"Well, I wasn't…"

"Oh… sorry about that."

"Its fine… say could you tell me why you decided to take the farm in the first place?"

"Well… Mist tells me that I have potential."

"And you believed her?" with a questionable look on her face.

"Well… not really…" confirming what Rosetta thought, or hoped he would respond if only to make him seem less gullible, "Really, I only took on this farm in order live off it until I get my memories back. But this town kinda grew on me a little bit so I might end up staying."

"I guess that's good in some respect. Hm?" The both of them heard Mist coming towards them, though she was skipping this time.

"Hey Rosetta, hey Raguna!" she said in a singsongy voice.

"What are you so happy about?" Rosetta asked.

"Well I'm baking a cake!"

"I see, so where is it?"

"In my house, in the oven."

"And you left the oven on?"

"Yep."

"And you're not worried about said oven burning the house down?"

"It won't burn it down! I closed the oven!" Raguna and Rosetta both looked at her strangely at how she responded. Then after staring at her seriously, Rosetta said

"But the cake will…" After a couple seconds of thinking about it, Mist ran back to her house in order to check up on the cake. "Geez, I wonder how she manages to keep her house in tact with everything she does…"

"I guess, its one of those things that we'll never really figure out."

"Heh, I guess." She turned around and proceeded to walk back to the house to help out her father with the shop. "Later then!"

"Later!"

And that pretty much became their relationship other than the fact that Rosetta teases both him and Mist constantly for liking each other. They were almost always together so it was easy for Rosetta to pick on them. But slowly, Rosetta did start to be a bit more open and friendly to Raguna despite the fact that Rosetta isn't very open to new people. Eventually, Raguna started to grow on Rosetta, as if Raguna was like a brother to her. She genuinely cares about Raguna and always makes sure that he's not overdoing anything. Like the time when Raguna came back from Carmite Cave.

"Hey, so you just got out of the clinic?"

"Yeah, Mist was taking care of me at the house after I left."

"Oh, she did…" Rosetta said with a smirk.

"No, it wasn't like that! I mean she was here yesterday because of the storm and to take care of me…"

"So she was here for two days huh?"

"Rosetta!"

"Ha ha, look at you, you're turning red!"

"…Rosetta…" he said in a soft meager voice.

"Anyways, are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine… I…" he was interrupted when Rosetta suddenly punched him on his head. "What was that for?"

"For almost dyeing on us!" after knocking him on the head, she waked up to him and hugged him. "Stupid, don't ever do that ever again! Do you know what would happen to all of us if you died!"

"Rosetta, I'm sorry."

"Well, you should be." She broke the embrace and started to walk back.

"Hey Rosetta, have you seen Mist? I haven't seen her all day."

"No, not today, why you miss her?"

"No! It's… ah never mind…"

"I have an idea where she could be, but I think she should be left alone today."

"Why's that?"

"No reason… later." She started walking away from the farm, but not the way she usually goes.

"Hey Rosetta, isn't your house that way?"

"I'm heading to the Mt. Clements,"

"Why?"

"It's none of your business…" she said in a pouty tone. So she went up to Mt. Clements and found Mist sitting on the top.

"Hey you."

"Oh, hey Rosetta!" Mist said, a little surprised she was there.

"So you're up here again?"

"Yeah, well…"

"Are you still thinking about that day?"

"Well, I usually come here to think about that day." She said jokingly.

"Mist…"

"And also because of Raguna…"

"Oh, so you do love him!"

"What? No! I…" stopping before this keeps going in circles.

"Hey, I was worried about him too, it's not everyday that someone just comes into our town and does all the things he does."

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

"Hey, cheer up, this isn't like you!"

"I know, it's just that sometimes its hard… Raguna almost died."

"But he's alright now!"

"I guess that's good."

"Yeah, I guess now the other girls in town will now flock to him because he's so strong to survive something like that." This actually struck a nerve in Mist

"What? How could you say that? The other girls won't flock to him! That's just wrong!"

"Really, so you're not just acting out like that because you love him?" Mist then realized that Rosetta almost caused her to admit to liking Raguna.

"Nevermind…" Mist said trying to stop Rosetta from teasing her. After calming down a little bit she tried to create conversation again. "So… are you still into that white stone thing?"

"Well, yeah…"

"I remember when you told me about that… It really isn't like you to be superstitious, even it is for love."

"Well, just the thought about someone going though all that trouble to do that kind of thing for love, it must be true."

"Even if it was Lukas?"

"Except Lukas… chances are, if he does find it, someone probably sold it to him…"

"I guess so hehehe…"

"That womanizer really doesn't know any better…"

"Yeah, I guess, if he's that desperate… but I think it's kind of romantic the way he constantly tries to win you over!"

"If that guy really wants to impress me, then he should probably be more like Raguna and work on it rather than just saying stuff like "be mine" or make up some dumb poem to impress me…"

"haha, I guess that's true…"

"By the way what kind of person do you really want to marry?"

"What kind of person? Let's see… oh a farmer! I've always wanted to just live on a farm for the rest of my life with my husband and we would have like two kids, a boy and a girl and we would be happy forever!"

"You know that's really specific."

"You think so! Thanks"

"…but that wasn't exactly a compliment… By the way, aren't you technically living on a farm right now?"

"Well, it's technically Raguna's now."

"Oh…" Rosetta said smirking, "so you want to marry Raguna eventually?"

"What? W-why would I, he's j-just a friend, I-I don't like him like that! Don't I keep telling you this?"

"But he's technically a farmer now right?" Mist ended up blushing and at the same time, look pouty.

"But-but… he d-doesn't have his m-memory right now s-so, I wouldn't know who he was before…"

"Would that really matter?"

"Fine then, what about you?"

"Hm… ah, I really do want someone who's hard working, adventurous, someone whose caring like my dad, and someone who isn't a womanizer like Lukas!"

"Oh… I see…" Mist said with the same look Rosetta had earlier.

"'I see' what?"

"Doesn't that describe Raguna a little?"

"What? W-what are you talking about?"

"I think you know, I think YOU like Raguna!"

"What? Why would I like him of all people? Yeah… he's like what I described, but so what? I don't like him like that!"

"Why are you blushing then?"

"I'm not!"

"Don't deny it, you like Raguna too!"

"Mist! Why you!" Rosetta ended up punching her over the head leaving a bit of a lump on her head.

"Rosetta, you meanie!"

"Well you brought it on yourself!" After talking a little more both Mist and Rosetta decided to head home.

On the way home she ran into Lukas, unfortunately, Rosetta was too tired to deal with him.

"Oh, my Rosetta, how have you been."

"I've been better…"

"Oh so you want me to fix it all with a ki…" before finishing his sentence she punched him in the face and ended up knocking him unconscious.

"Not in your lifetime Lukas." Mei ended up showing up just as Rosetta punched him.

"Oh hi Rosetta, I guess Lukas was giving you trouble again…"

"Yeah, well… you know how he is… you want to take care of this?"

"Sure, later!" Mei ended up carrying Lukas back to the inn, hoping Lady Ann wouldn't mind one of her residents is out cold.

Rosetta headed back upstairs and got ready for bed. Before falling asleep, she contemplated about her potential love and started to think about Raguna a little bit. _"Marrying and falling in love with Raguna huh? That really doesn't sound half bad."_ Although after a couple minutes of contemplating about it, she came to an inevitable conclusion. _"Naw, it's never gonna happen... my guess, he's going to end up like Mist…"_


	7. First Week of Summer: Beach Daze

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harvest Moon or Rune Factory…**

**Life on the Mist Farm**

**First Week of Summer: Beach Daze**

It was finally summer and to the citizens of Kardia, it means the beaches are open. Raguna decided to go out to the beach that day since he had to sew new crops anyway. He was able to find some swimming trunks and started to head out to the beach.

"Hey Raguna!" Mist yelled as Raguna started to turn around to face her.

"Hey Mi…" he couldn't finish his sentence as when he looked at her in a bikini, he turned into a very deep shade of red.

"Hey what's wrong you look like you swallowed a bug, oh are you burning up?"

"No… it's probably just the weather… it is summer after all…"

"I guess, but without all of that red, you do look pretty hot," which ended up causing both of them to blush. _"I can't believe I just said that,"_ she thought.

"_I can't believe she just said that, wow… uh…"_ after a few seconds of looking embarrassed, Raguna finally said, "so you want to head to the beach before we bake?"

"That sounds good!"

"Alright let's go then!" She ran up to him grabbed his arm and the two of them walked together. While walking there he caught himself staring at her. _"Wow, she looks… really… oh god…"_ he could swear he started to nosebleed a little bit, and the fact that she was grabbing his arm and was so close to him didn't help either. Mist started to stare at him at this point smiling at him, until she looked at the nosebleed.

"You're nose is bleeding Raguna! Are you okay?" Raguna stared at her in order to respond to her… except the way she was staring at him made him nosebleed faster that he originally was.

"Yeah… I'm okay… I just… uh… t-tripped this morning… yeah…" hopefully avoiding the fact that he was staring at her like that.

"Oh, I see, wellI hope it stops soon, otherwise the other girls might think you're a little bit of a pervert, but I know you're not like that!" which was lucky for Raguna since Mist was a little naïve.

"Oh, really, well let's hope… ha ha ha…"

By the time the both of them got there almost everyone in the village was in the beach in their swimsuits. Cecilia and Nicholas were both swimming together with Sabrina, Tori was reading her books, Melody was just drifting as if she was in her bath house, and Felicity was just sitting on the pier. Luckily for Raguna, he nosebleed stopped so he can finally start swimming with everyone.

"Hey Raguna, Mist!" Camus yelled from across the beach.

"Hey Camus! We'll be there in a sec!" and while both Mist and Raguna started running towards Camus, Zavier finally made it to the beach.

"All right now! Time to show Mist my impressive physique, then she'll be sure to fall for me!" even though his physique weaker than Raguna's, which he didn't like to admit at the time. "So now, Mist should be around here somewhere… ah there she is…" he couldn't help but stare at her… and then he fell over with a massive nosebleed. Rosetta followed behind him and saw him on the ground with the nosebleed.

"Pervert…" was the only thing Rosetta said to Zavier when she walked off towards the beach.

Back to Camus, Raguna and Mist, Camus decided on a great idea to do on the beach.

"What about a race to the water?" Camus suggested.

"A race? Heh, you're on!"

"Mist, you mind being the finishing point?"

"Sure!" Mist ran into part of the water to mark the finish. "Are you two ready?"

"Hey Raguna, they said you were tough, but you won't beat me."

"Well, I guess I have to prove why they say I'm though!" Mist waved her hands in order to signal the start and the two ran off.

Zavier on the other hand was able to recover.

"Man, what happened, one second I was just walking towards the beach, and then next I saw…" he just happened to stare at Mist again and then get knocked out with a huge nosebleed. Lady Ann was able to stop to find him on the ground.

"Zavier… geez, what am I going to do with you…" Lady Ann ended up picking him up and placing him to where her and Tori are sitting.

As for the race…

"Well who won?" both Raguna and Camus asked Mist.

"Well uh… you actually both got my hand at about the same time…"

"There has to be someone that touched your hand before the other."

"I'm sorry… I really couldn't tell, you guys were dead even."

Camus, a bit disappointed sighed and said, "oh well… you know, you're pretty good there Raguna, for a farm boy."

"You're not so bad yourself Camus."

"Well then, if you want a rematch, you know where to find me" After that Camus ran off to talk to Melody.

"So what now?" Raguna asked.

Just then Mei jumped out of the ocean with a fish in hand and landed near the both of them, nearly scaring Mist and Raguna. But then tripped and fell backwards causing the fish to slip out of her hands and back into the ocean.

"Hey Mei, did you catch that fish with your bare hands?" Mist asked.

"Yeah… until you guys scared it off…" Mei said.

"Well, technically it was you who scared us, and then you probably tripped in the sand…"

"…Well… who's asking! You two can't do any better!"

"But we don't know how to catch fish with our bare hands…" Raguna said.

"That sounds like a challenge there!" the three turned to face who said that to find Rosetta there.

"Rosetta? Don't tell me you know how to catch fish with your bare hands?"

"…actually no…" Rosetta said scratching her head, "But it seems like something fun!"

"I guess you have a point…" Raguna said reluctantly, "well then why don't we do it!"

"Yeah, it'll be fun!" Mist said.

And the two of them ran off and swam out to the middle of the ocean to hopefully catch some fish… which actually was harder than it looked. In many cases they ended up butting heads because they were chasing the same fish. At some point the sand underwater kicked up making them blind underwater. Raguna was trying to feel around for any fish around him and was able to grab something he thought was actually pretty big. He brought it to the surface after a small fight with it.

"I got one!" Raguna yelled with his eyes still closed. Unfortunately.

"Um Raguna…" He finally wiped his eye from the sand underwater to find that… "Um… Hi…" he ended up catching Mist. "This is kind of embarrassing…"

"WHA!" Raguna ended up turning red again. Unfortunately Rosetta heard a little commotion so she swam to the top to see what happened.

"Hey Raguna, did you catch something?" when Rosetta finally opened her eyes, Raguna was still holding on to Mist and he was still deep red. "Hehehe, Oh I think I know what happened here?"

"Wait Rosetta," Raguna said finally letting go of Mist, "It's not what it looks like!"

"Or so you say… I didn't know you were like that… you know, you're really cute when you're pouty red."

"Rosetta, it was an accident!" Mist said trying to defend Raguna.

"You guys are a really dirty couple aren't you?" which ended up turning Mist red and the both of them screaming.

"WE'RE NOT!"

About two hours of trying to catch fish, along with some verbal abuse from Rosetta, the four of them finally caught… something.

"Alright, this will do!" Mei gloatingly said, "How did you three do?"

"Well…" the three of them said together holding up very small salmons.

"oh well, we can't all be expert fish catchers."

"Well we don't exactly do this everyday!" the three of them yelled.

"Well where I come from, we could all catch fish with our bare hands, it helps us get in tune with the rivers and the oceans."

"…but we don't come from your villiage…"

"I guess that's true, oh well, time to hang this little one up, later!" She said running off.

"You know, she says she's older than she looks…" Raguna said throwing his small fish back into the ocean.

"I'm starting to question that…" Rosetta said throwing her fish back.

"I second that…" Mist said also throwing her fish back as the three of them sighed.

"Oh well, I'm going to head back." Rosetta said.

"But why? It's still pretty bright outside!" Mist told Rosetta.

"Well, I have to go do something at the shop and besides, I think I can escape without Lukas finding me."

"I guess, well later Rosetta."

"Later!" and with her gone, they're left without anything to do again.

"So… what now?" Raguna said, which left a bit of a smirk on Mist's face.

"How about this?" Raguna turned to face her to get a splash of water in his face. "tehe, I got you!"

"Oh really?" Raguna started to splash Mist a little bit also as she tried to run away and splash him again.

"I won't lose to you!"

"We'll see about that!" The two of them were going at it for a while continuously trying to splash the other. That is until…

"I've got you now! woah!"

"Mist are you alrig…" Mist ended up tripping landing on Raguna. Unbeknownst to them, Camus and Melody were walking near them while they were still on the ground.

"So Melody, I was just wondering if you have some time, if you want to hang out?"

"Camus you know I devote much of my time to the bath house."

"But still you have breaks don't you?"

"Well I do but… huh? Oh"

"Huh? What is… oh I see what's going on here." The both of them started to smirk as they say Mist and Raguna on the ground, eyes wide open, Mist on top of Raguna and their lips touching. "I didn't know you guys moved that fast!"

Both of them broke out of their 'kiss' and futilely tried to persuade them otherwise.

"It was an accident, I tripped and…" Mist was saying before getting cut off by Melody.

"And Raguna cushioned the fall and you were so thankful you kissed him!" Melody said with a fangirlish yell at the end.

"No! That's not what happened!"

"Or maybe you did it on purpose!"

"Melody, it wasn't like that." Raguna said trying to defend the both of them.

"Maybe you should teach Lukas one of these days, maybe he might actually win Rosetta's heart." Camus interjected.

"But we didn't kiss on purpose!" Raguna and Mist both said.

"Oh we understand, it was just an 'accident' right?" Melody said.

"No we…" but the two of them couldn't get a word in with Melody rambling on like that.

"Oh, you guys make such a cute couple!"

"But we're not!"

"Sure, I get it! We'll keep this secret to ourselves." Melody started to walk away giggling to herself.

"Well then, see you later you two!" Camus said also walking away with Melody leaving the two of them alone, blushing very hard, so much so that they couldn't look at each other without blushing.

"So… um…" Mist tried to speak to Raguna without being so embarrassed, "it's starting to get dark soon, do you want to go in now?"

"Yes, that would be good!" Raguna said rather quickly.

"Um… I… uh… do you… want to… I mean… do you want to walk home together?"

"Oh…" still very embarrassed he ended up saying, "I… uh… I was going to talk… to… um…" starting to look around for something, "talk to… ah Russel, I was gonna talk to Russel about something before leaving…"

"Oh… um… I guess that's okay… I have to stop by Rosetta's place before going home…"

"Yeah, I guess that's alright too…"

"Um…"

"Uh…" The both of them were too shy to speak to each other at this point so they said their good byes and headed to where they said they were going off to (though they ended up heading straight home when the other wasn't looking.

The next day, Raguna was working on the farm seeding his summer crops when Mist arrived on the farm as usual to check up on him. Though she was a bit hesitant today and was still blushing when she saw him. Raguna looked up noticing her and then looked back down blushing as well. There was a huge awkward silence between the two of them as the both of them tried to stare at each other but were too shy to look for longer periods of time. It was only when Raguna decided to take a break when they started to look at each other more comfortably. But even still, they were too shy to go though with actually speaking to each other until…

"Hey Raguna…" Mist finally said.

"Yeah Mist?"

"Um… about yesterday…"

"Y-yeah, what about it?"

"Um… I… a… well… I just wanted to say that… it was fun yesterday…"

"Yeah… it was fun!"

"So… um… Raguna… about that time… yesterday, when I tripped… and I…"

"A-and you…"

"Fell on you and… that… happened…"

"Oh… that…"

"Um… that 'kiss' was accidental…"

"Yeah, I kind of figured as much…"

"Well… I mean it wasn't bad or something like that..."

"I guess given the circumstances… it could have happened to anyone… I mean, Rosetta or Mei or someone else could have…"

"Y-y-yeah, that's right, it could have happened to anyone else!"

"Except this time it just happened to us." Raguna somehow didn't realize that he started to get closer to Mist and Mist didn't realize that he was getting closer. The both of them blushed ferociously and when they finally did notice each other, they immediately turned their heads to the side.

"I mean it's not like you're an unattractive person," Mist said, obviously not catching her words, "I-I think that you look really cute…"

"I guess, and you're really pretty too, I mean, at least that's how I think…" Raguna said, also not paying attention to what he was saying.

The both of them at this point really didn't know what they were saying OR doing, as if they were being controlled by a magical force as they began to approach each other closer and were looking at each other intimately.

"The thing is," the both of them said getting closer to each other, "I…" they soon got closer and closer to each other until they started to feel each other's breath. Then Raguna put his hand on Mist's cheek, Mist wrapped her arms around Raguna, they closed their eyes, and finally went into a deep kiss. They were like this for roughly five seconds until they finally realized what they were doing. When they did, they shot their eyes open and broke the kiss making them reinvent the color red.

"Raguna, I'm sorry, I didn't mean…"

"No… Mist I…"

They were going back and forth telling the other that they were sorry that they kissed each other until they turned their heads towards the city to find the last person they wanted to see…

"R-r-r-rosetta?" the both of them yelled.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" Rosetta said with a devilish look on her face.

"Rosetta," Mist asked timidly, "exactly how long have you been there?"

"Long enough to see you two lovers kissing each other," and Raguna and Mist's faces turned from tomato red to pale gloomy color.

They turned to face each other gloomily telling each other, "we're never going to hear the end of this are we?"


	8. Second Week of Summer: Toros Cave

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harvest Moon or Rune Factory…**

**Life on the Mist Farm**

**Second Week of Summer: Toros Cave**

"Wow its cold in here!" Raguna yelled as soon as he entered with his voice echoing throughout the cave. "Why didn't anyone tell me it was going to be this cold in here…" he said sighing but then he remembered something Mist told him before he started to venture into the cave.

"_Raguna, are you really going to another cave?" Mist asked._

"_Yeah, these caves might have some sort of key to my memories, and besides, I think those strange devices are in these caves too."_

"_I guess I can't stop you then," Mist said a little depressingly, "just be careful alright…"_

"_I will, don't worry so much." Raguna started to make his way to the Toros Cave… but then remembered, "Um… hey Mist?"_

"_Yeah what's up?"_

"_Where is Toros Cave exactly?"_

"_Oh it's right across this bridge." He then started to make his way towards the cave (again) before being stopped by Mist. "Oh I almost forgot, the cave is going to be a little bit cold, similar to the climate in the fall."_

"_But it's a cave right? I'll be fine, I'm pretty well clothed anyway."_

"I guess I'm regretting those words now…" he said looking dumbfounded. "Let's see, I could just go back to the house since it's not that far from here." Just then he heard something from a distance and ran towards it to see what it was. He was met by two demons that came after Raguna. He stood ready with his sword in hand and started to attack. "These things are tougher than I thought…" he said out loud, _"And if I don't do anything about that machine, I'm just going to keep fighting these things over and over again…" _is what he thought.

The demons started to lunge at him but he was able to dodge their attacks and was able to make several quick slashes and send them away, but as soon as he did, two more demons got spit out of the thing. "I see, defeat one, and two more take its place… I guess I don't have much choice, I have to take out that machine first." Of course he first had to somehow evade all of those demons first. _"Looks like I'm going to have to try out my new weapon already."_ With quick thinking, he threw his sword at the machine and hid it dead on and destroyed it. Then he grabbed for his new two-handed sword, unsheathed it and swung at the demons. Though he was able to send one away, he had trouble getting the rest. _"Darn it, this blade's so heavy"_ realizing how much slower his attacks are.

"Huh? ARGH!" Raguna yelled as he got struck on the back by one of the demons that managed to slip away. Then he started to notice that his body started to feel somewhat numb. "Ugh… I… can't move…" Raguna was having a very hard time trying to stand up and by the time he did get up, the demons were able to surround him. And though sheer willpower, he was able to pick his sword back up and spin around and send the rest of the demons back to the First Forest.

"Great, now that they're gone, I just have to find my spell book and get rid of this paralysis." He put back his two-handed sword and struggled to get to his light sword and sit down next to the wall. "Okay now… I just need to get out the Medication Spell…" and he started to search for his spell book. After finding it, he recited the incantation. "Cleanse and reject all alien substances, Medication!" A green light surrounded him releasing all of the tense muscles due to the paralysis. But that didn't stop him from feeling cold inside.

"Maybe, I should head home and actually get some warm clothes now before something else comes and attack me." Just then he heard footsteps approaching him. "Oh god, what now…" he said as the footsteps got louder. He then grabbed for his sword and got in a battle ready stance. But then he heard a familiar voice calling out to him.

"Hey Raguna, where are you man?"

"Zavier?" Raguna was relieved to see him, sort of.

"Hey, you doing alright so far?"

"Yeah, no thanks to you…"

"You're still not sour about me abandoning you last time are you?"

"…No…not really…" he said sarcastically as Zavier just stood their laughing weakly.

"Oh by the way, I saw Mist on the way here and she told me to bring you this." Zavier handed Raguna a cloak, arm warmers and a scarf. "She told me you might be needing this."

"Really now…" but in his mind he was thinking, _"She knows me way too well… I'm starting to wonder…"_

"Anyways, it's not getting any warmer in here, so you might as well put this stuff on." So he put on the extra clothes and the both of them began to explore deeper into the caves. The next room they went into looked like it just snowed in there.

"Hey, Raguna, you have your hammer on you?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I think there's a room in there, we just need to break those stones."

"…couldn't we just climb over them?" Raguna asked.

"We could, but it looks like some of them were getting stacked on one another." Zavier said, obviously not thinking about climbing.

They were at it for about forty-five minutes until the room was able to open up. Inside they found two more rooms, one of which looked like the entrance.

"Why is it that some of these rooms are frozen and the others are like this?"

"Well… I think Tori read something like this before but for some reason, the places that are most connected with the earth aren't frozen over… or something like that."

"You sure you didn't get that from Mist because it sounds to me like you got it from her."

"How would you know that?"

"It didn't make sense…" Raguna said with a blank look on his face. "Anyways, we should look what is in the next room."

When they got inside they found another machine that's summoning something different.

"What's coming out of that thing this time?" Zavier said as the two of them got ready. The machine lit its spark and the faded to reveal…

"Oh wow, is that a Wooly?" Raguna asked.

"It looks like it, but it seems off though…"

"It looks a little scared." Raguna put away his sword and ran up to the Wooly and started to pet it.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you…" a concerned Zavier said.

"Zavier, it's a Wooly, even Lara knows it's harmless." But then when he put his left hand near the Wooly, they could only hear one sound, a loud crunch. Raguna looked down to see that the little sheep monster thing had its mouth and teeth on Raguna's left hand. "WAAH, Get this thing off me!"

"Slice it off with your sword, it should be sent away!"

"Okay!" so he took his sword back out trying to get the wooly off of his hand. Unfortunately he was a bit fearful off using his sword since he might end up slicing his own arm. So he started to attack it with the hilt of the sword. He then dropped his sword and tried to take it off with his right hand. He then disappeared suddenly without him attacking the Wooly even once.

"What just happened?"

"Um… did you do anything Zavier?"

"No but let me see…" he looked at what he had on him at the time and noticed his gloves. "Wait could that be? Where did you get that glove, the one in your right hand?"

"This one? Oh Tabatha gave me it."

"Really now… cause I think that that glove is a friendship glove."

"Yeah, she called it the same thing, but I never really understood what it did."

"Well, it's a magical glove that allows you to convey your feelings to monsters."

"Oh really… I was just using this thing as a grip too… but where is it now?"

"My guess, it went into your monster shed that you put in recently. I'm guessing it didn't work for you before because you didn't have one."

"I don't know, that doesn't seem like a realistic reason."

"It's just the way it is I guess…" Zavier said with a confused look on his face. "Anyways, lets destroy this thing and go back cause it seems like a dead end to me."

So the two of them ventured further into the cave once again taking out monsters and destroying each of the machines summoning them. They eventually reached the stairs and the both of them were somewhat tired.

"…Lucky this room isn't as cold as the others…" Zavier said panting.

"Yeah, this looks like a good place to rest too… by now, it should be mid afternoon, so we still have time until it goes dark." And so the two of them decided to stay in that room for a small amount of time in order to rest.

"Hey Raguna… I was just wondering, have you ever talked to my sister before?"

"Tori? Yeah, I've talk to her several times…"

"No, I mean, 'really' talk to her."

"Oh… well, not really…"

"So you don't seem very interested in my sister."

"I mean she's a good girl, it's just that, I'm not really attracted to her in that way."

"Really, then who are you attracted to… Mist maybe?"

"Wait what?"

"I still think you like Mist, but be forewarned, I WILL get her heart one day, so I don't want you to get heartbroken one day, cause you're a good guy, I don't want to see you go thought that kind of pain…"

"Huh? Zavier, I don't…"

"Hey, I think it'll be alright if we start exploring again, let's finish this before it gets dark." Raguna could sense Zavier was trying to avoid what he was trying to say. Zavier really firmly believed that Raguna liked Mist and that Mist felt the same way and having Raguna deny those feelings would just make him mad.

"Alright…"

The two of them then descended the stairs in order to explore the rest of the caves… only to find a bunch of wolves…

"How are there so many wolves?" Zavier yelled

"They must have appeared while we were resting." Raguna said.

"That's just great…"

"But these ones don't look very strong, I think we can take them out fast."

"Okay, but I'm going to kill you if I die!" And so the two explorers ran in head first hoping that the wolves really won't be much of a challenge. And twenty minutes later they were done…

"How many were there!?" Zavier yelled out to Raguna.

"huff I lost count after the fifth one…"

"…oh well… the last room's in there… well… I'll see you later…" Zavier said as he tried to walk off.

"Oh no you don't…" Raguna said pulling Zavier from his shirt and essentially dragging him to the last room.

"Darn it… I was so close…"

When they got into the last room, the both of them were stunned at what they were seeing before them.

"No way…" Zavier coldly said shivering.

"That… can't be… is that a Chimera?" The giant monster just stood there shaking both explorers. But Raguna was able to recollect himself in order to prepare for the inevitable fight. The next thing he saw was the Chimera charging at him. He was able to pull out his heavy sword in time in order to block him but they ended up in a standoff.

"Zavier, I need you to help me out here… Zavier?" he looked over to his side to see that he has already fled. "ZAVIER!!" Raguna yelled as he was still holding the chimera off.

Raguna didn't have time to worry about Zavier, if anything else he would be safer where he was (or is going). Raguna knew only one way to beat the chimera, he had to paralyze his wings. So what Raguna ended up doing was bait the chimera and then run behind it in order to jump on its back. Raguna was able to run behind him but unfortunately he got kicked to the wall. So then he took out his one handed blade and started to attack the chimera with a barrage of shockwaves.

"Raguna…" Mist whispered to herself before going back into hiding. She stared over the corner to see that his fight with the chimera was going rather smoothly. Until the chimera went into its rage mode.

"Darn it…" Raguna was cornered. He didn't know what to do. His hands were sweaty, his heart was racing and his sight became narrow. Then something unusual happened. Raguna saw an opening under the chimera and started attacking the chimera with a barrage of steel and with one more attack, he was able to send away the chimera. "W-what… what just happened?"

"Raguna!" Mist said running towards him out of the corner.

"Huh? Mist?" Raguna was surprised to see her there. "How long were you there?"

"I saw the whole fight, but you were sooo cool!" Mist said with a big smile on her face rushing towards him and hug him.

"I wasn't that cool…" Raguna said blushing.

"HEY, WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING!?" Zavier yelled as he saw the two of them there.

"Zavier where were you?" Raguna asked.

"Well… I figured I'd stop to investigate some of the mysteries of this cave, so I…"

"You just ran off!" Raguna and Mist said.

"Besides, I doubt you found anything…" Mist said with a pouty face.

"…I'm heading back home…" Zavier said as he was leaving.

"You don't suppose he came back because he was worried about you?" Mist said to Raguna.

"I guess so…" Raguna said back to her. "Let's go home okay."

"Yep!"

While they were walking back to the cave entrance, they were talking about the last fight and how cool Raguna was, even though he was still denying it. But then…

"OW!" Raguna tripped over something and fell on his face.

"Raguna are you okay?"

"Yeah, I think so… I think I fell on this stone thing…" When Raguna picked it up, he showed it to her and she gasped when she saw it.

"It can't be…"

"What is it Mist?"

"Rosetta's looking for this, it's a White Stone."

"White Stone, what's so special about this stone?"

"It is said that anyone who is proposed to with this stone will be happy together forever." And Raguna started to blush a little after hearing that.

"Rosetta said so?"

"Yeah, it isn't like her to believe in that sort of thing right?"

"Yeah, I guess…" Raguna seemed a little bit awkward about holding it now. "Um… Mist… do you think you can give Rosetta this stone so… it doesn't seem so awkward?"

"…um… sure…" Mist said softly blushing. "You're not just giving it to me right?"

"As a… I mean… uh… I… just wanted to give you this… so that Rosetta can have it… w-without all of the weird… and awkward complications…"

"Yeah, I guess…" she said looking somewhat disappointed.

"Mist… did you want… me t-to… p-propose to you with this?" which caused the both of them to blush a little bit.

"No! I… I really don't believe in those things… I… just want... I mean… I'm sorry…"

"No, don't be… I mean… even if we… were… closer I… uh… I'm not really ready for any marriage… yet…"

"Me neither! I'll just take this white stone to her then… so she could have it for someone she loves." And when she said this, Raguna came up to her and handed it off to her. And the two of them started making their way out of the cave. When they got to the farm, the found Rosetta getting ready to leave and they were able to catch up to her before she left.

"Wait, you two found it in the Toros cave?" Rosetta said to the both of them.

"Well… Yeah, it was near a pile of snow so it was a little hard to see, " Raguna said "although it was easier to feel it…"

"So… he found it to give it to you to give it to me right?"

"Yep… that's about it." Mist said.

"So I guess that means that you proposed to her right Raguna?"

"What No!" Raguna said blushing a deep shade of red.

"It wasn't like that! Rosetta..."

"Mist, did you say yes to him?"

"But he didn't propose to me!"

"Oh… look at the time, I have to go get ready for tomorrow so see ya!"

"Wait Rosetta!"


	9. Third Week of Summer: Clements Cave

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harvest Moon or Rune Factory…**

**Life on the Mist Farm**

**Third Week of Summer: Clements Cave**

_On a holiday when the weather is fine, give thanks for the blessings of the earth, and give the most delicious, bottle of milk to a girl you like. _

_Make sure you have taken a bath on that day and cleansed yourself. _

_Time and Place: _

_9 PM on the summit of Mt. Clements. _

_Do this and propose to her, then you'll live happily for the rest of your lives._

Raguna stared at this book for a little while and started to feel a bit uneasy.

"_Geez, this is less of a confession and more of a curse!"_ Raguna thought as he was reading though those words again. _"Even Mist wouldn't believe something like that... although… it wouldn't surprise me if she did…"_

"Hey Raguna, what's that book you're reading?" Tori said peering over him.

"Oh, it's just something I'm just looking at."

"Oh I see what it is now, it's one of a few books in the series that talks about several different ways to fall in love, getting married and being together forever!"

"_Then I guess Tori really believes in this stuff…"_ Raguna thought.

"I bet you can find something to make you and Mist happy together." Which caused Raguna to blush a little bit.

"Not you too…"

"I think you two look so cute together, like a knight and a princess!" Tori said looking starry eyed. "You know, I've always wanted to have a knight ride up and pick me up to marry me and we can live happily ever after!"

"_She's been reading too many fantasy books…"_ Raguna thought. "In any case I'm not a knight so…"

"But with all of the things you've done so far, I guess before you lost your memory, you could have been a knight."

"I guess that could have been a possibility, with the way I observed my fighting style, it seems too refined for some reason."

"Like I said, maybe you were a knight sent to find a wife..." Tori said before she gasped, "…or maybe you were Mist's knight but you hit your head somewhere on the way here and now you can't remember why you're here."

"Tori… I don't think I was sent here for that specific reason…" though Tori didn't listen.

"Yeah, and maybe you were engaged to here at some point! And then some sort of tragedy happened and…" Raguna at this point started to block her out.

"_Yep, she's definitely Zavier's sister, she exaggerates everything…"_ Raguna thought.

Just then Russell ran though the door and running though the library as if he lost something.

"Hey Russell, is everything alright?" Tori asked.

"Oh… have you guys seen Cecilia?" Russell asked frantically.

"No, I thought she was with Nicholas?"

"Russell?" Tori seemed very worried at this point as well as Raguna.

"I'm just afraid she went missing again…"

"Again?"

"Cecilia love exploring around," Tori said, "but a lot of times, she tends to wander near the caves a lot. We tend to find her before she enters the cave but…"

"Now we're afraid that she might have wandered inside of one…"

"Well did she say something specifically?"

"Not really but she really seems to love to go near Clements mountains."

"Alright, I'll see what I can do!"

"And I'll keep searching the town!" Tori said as all three of them left the library. Raguna was able to obtain a pass to Clements cave to investigate that cave. Afterwards he ran towards his house in order to get his stuff ready. Then he heard a knock on the door to find that it was Mist outside.

"Raguna, I heard Ceci's missing!"

"Yeah, I'm going to head out to Clements Cave to look for her."

"I'll go with you!"

"No, I don't want to put you in danger too…"

"But I want to help you, either way two heads are better than one right?"

"I guess I can't argue with that logic then…" Raguna said to himself, "just be careful alright Mist?"

"Yeah…"

Raguna and Mist both ran towards the cave to see that Melody is just outside.

"Oh, it's you two! What are you two doing here?" Melody asked.

"We could ask you the same thing…" Raguna said, "You don't look like the type that would go off and go explore."

"Well, this is a cave where the temperature seems right to put in hot springs in here… though if anyone did come they would probably be scared off by the monsters and it is a bit too hot in there… wait, you two aren't planning to go in there?"

"Yeah, we actually are, we're looking for Cecilia and we think she's in here."

"Well, I'll look in my bath house, but be careful in there, it's like an oven!"

"We'll be careful, don't worry Melody!" Mist said while winking.

"I guess so… yeah, you two will be alright! And I heard that when two people who are in love fight with each other, their spells become twenty times stronger!"

"But we're not in love!" Raguna said frantically.

"Hehehe, later!" Melody said while leaving. While she left the two of them decided to enter Clements Cave.

"Woah… Melody wasn't lying…" Raguna said panting.

"Yeah… are you alright Raguna?"

"Yeah, I am what about you?"

"I'm okay…" Mist said, "I'm just not so used to this heat…"

"Are you sure you want to stay here? I don't want you to…"

"I'll be okay, I'm more worried about Ceci."

"Yeah, let's go!"

The both of them found a lot of monsters in the area, though conveniently most of them had a weakness to water. They eventually reached an area with a fire monster that was shooting fire.

"Mist, do you think you can fire another Water Laser, I used up too much of my mana."

"Okay… Water Laser!" A stream of water hit the fire monster and was able to send it away, but part of the flames hit and burned Mist.

"Mist!" Raguna yelled as she started to kneel down from the pain.

"Raguna…"

"Hold on…" Raguna took out his spell book and attempted to soothe and heal her burns. "Oh divine embrace that fosters light… Cure!" Her burn healed and he was able to soothe her burn.

"Thank you…" she struggled a little bit trying to get up.

"That burn must have been really severe."

"No, it's fine see!"

"Mist… don't lie to me…"

"I'm sorry…"

"It's alright… listen we should stop here for a second…"

"But Ceci…"

"She's a strong girl… she'll be alright, but she won't be if we pass out." She nodded at him and they started resting. "Here, I brought some water and some food on me…"

"Okay, thanks." She took a bite out of his sandwich and actually enjoyed it. "Raguna, this is pretty good!"

"Yeah, it helps when you don't have to cook anything…"

"I guess that's true!" Mist said, "Hey Raguna…"

"Yeah?"

"I wonder, what will you do if your memory ever comes back to you?" Raguna seemed surprised she would ask a question like that. But it also confused him as well.

"Well, I'm not sure… I'll probably end up leaving… heading back to where I lived before…"

"Oh… I see…" Mist said looking depressed.

"Mist… I didn't mean it like that… I'll always remember everyone in the villiage… and I'll remember…" He was cut off when Mist came up to hug him tightly, as if she was trying to prevent him from leaving.

"Raguna… I… I understand that you have to go back to your life before… but…"

"Mist…"

"Raguna… could you promise me something?"

"What?"

"If you ever do leave… tell me… so I and everyone else could see you off…"

"Mist… I…" He then started to hear crying, it was faint but he thought it was coming from Mist. "Are you crying?"

"Huh… no?" she said looking up at him with her tearless face.

"But then that must mean…"

"Cecilia!" The both of them got up and decided to head in that direction. When they reached the area, they could see Cecilia, sitting down on a stone crying.

"D-daddy… Nicholas… Mist… Raguna… where are you…" she cried in between sobs.

"Cecilia!"

"Ceci…"

"Mist? Raguna?" she lifted her head to see the farm boy and girl staring at her happy to see her.

"Ceci, we were so worried about you!" Mist said.

"Mist… Raguna… I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…" she cried as she ran up to the both of them and hugged them.

"Ceci… why did you come inside this cave… you know how dangerous these caves are…" Raguna asked.

"Well… I wanted to see how the caves were… but then when I went inside… I saw all of these monsters there…they tried to go after me so I ran… I ran and I ran and I kept running… and then I got here… I didn't want to go back because of all of the monsters… so I stayed here…"

"Ceci… we're glad your safe…"

"Raguna… Mist…" she said when she was crying her heart out.

"Okay, you ready to go Ceci?" Mist said extending her hand out.

"Yep!" Cecilia happily said.

And the three of them started to head towards the exit with Cecilia holding Raguna and Mist's hands. When they were at an intersection, all three of them heard a chilling roar heading towards left of where they were.

"What is that?" Raguna asked.

"Not sure… But it sounds really fierce…"

"Mist could you do me a favor?"

"Yeah…"

"I want you to take Cecilia home without me."

"…so you could go find out what that roar was right?" Raguna didn't seem too surprised she said that, it seemed as though they really knew each other at that point. Mostly because they were almost always together. Raguna just gave a small nod to her and instantly knew what he was thinking. "You better come back… If you die, I won't forgive you…"

"Okay, I understand." Raguna let go of Cecilia's hand and ran off to investigate while the girls were heading out.

"Hey Mist?"

"Yeah Ceci?"

"I wonder, do you think Raguna would be that special one you want to marry?" Mist blushed when Cecilia asked her that.

"Well… actually… I…"

"Oops… I wasn't supposed to ask something like that was I?"

"No, it's perfectly fine, but do you want to know a secret?"

"Yeah Mist?"

Mist started to look around for a certain blond haired shipping girl or a pink haired girl with a witch's outfit until finally saying, "I think I might like him."

"Really?" Cecilia said with a bright face.

"Yeah… but it's too early to think that he'll be my special someone."

"Is that why you lent him your farm?"

"Well… not really, I just wanted to help him out… but now, I just want him to stay… even if he doesn't feel the same way I do…"

"I wish I had someone I felt that way like that!"

"You'll find someone eventually, but Ceci will you promise not to tell anyone?" hoping she won't tell anyone, especially Rosetta or Melody.

"Yep, it'll be our secret!"

"k' now lets get out of here!"

While the two of them were heading out, Raguna was still dealing with the monsters in the area. But because of the extreme heat, he's starting to feel a little bit dizzy.

"…I really don't think that staying here would be the best thing to do… I just… I…" Raguna started to get a bit of a heat stroke so he poured on of his bottled waters on himself to cool himself down. "Oh wow… I never thought that it would be THIS hot in here…"

"Well that's why you should have something cool on you!"

"Wait who…" he couldn't finish his sentence as he was then hit by a splash of water.

"Cooled off yet?"

"Melody…" Raguna said as he sighed.

"oh… I must have used too much…" Melody said worried that she accidentally soaked Raguna.

"Well, I'm cooled off if that's what you wanted… anyways, why are you here?"

"What, you don't know?"

"Oh… right… hot springs…" Raguna said realizing how obvious it was.

"Anyways, I do believe that you've gotten rid of most, if not all of the monster machines by now right?"

"Yep, I got them all… but by the time I got rid of the last one, I almost collapsed."

"And so I found you here pouring water on yourself."

"…so after looking around some more, do you still think that this is a good place to put hot spring in here?"

"Well… I didn't look at every room so…"

"Hey guys!" said a voice from afar.

"Mist? You're back?" Raguna asked.

"Yeah, I found Russell on the way so I was able to get back here quickly!"

"Mist, Melody… you guys know how dangerous it could be up ahead…"

"Don't worry about us, we'll be okay!" Melody said fairly gleefully.

"…I guess I can't stop you then, never stopped Mist…"

"Oh thank you Raguna!" the both of them said.

The three of them walked into the last area only to find a giant flower like thing in the middle of the area.

"Oh, this would be so great for a bath house to be put in here!"

"Melody, I don't think…" Raguna was saying before getting cut off by Melody, again…

"Yeah, and I have the perfect name for it too!"

"Melody I don't think you should go towards that flower thing." Mist said to her.

"Huh? Why not?" just then she just stepped on one of the pedals accidentally awakening the plant monster.

"That could be a clear sign…" Raguna sarcastically responded.

"What is that thing?"

"I'm not sure, but whatever it is, it has to go back into its own world." Raguna sternly said.

"Okay!" Mist said.

"Got it!" Melody said.

When the three of them started to fight the giant plant monster, a bunch of bees and ants crawled out of the monster aiming for the girls. Luckily Melody and Mist were able to use their fireball spells in time before the insects reached attacking range. Raguna, however, took blunt attacks from the giant flower monster itself. It was only until the girls started to concentrate their fireballs at the plant monster that Raguna was able to recover.

"Are you okay Raguna?" Mist asked him.

"Yeah, I'm able to dodge enough to evade some of my vital points but if this keeps up…"

"Well then, we just have to beat it before that happens right?" Melody said.

"Heh, I guess you're right then." Raguna stood back up preparing himself for another attack.

"Alright guys," Mist cried, "let's go trim this plant!" though caused Melody and Raguna to look at her rather strangely.

And after a fairly long fight, they were able to defeat the monster plant and send it back to it's own world.

"Well… so much for my new hot springs…" Melody said a little disappointed.

"I don't think anyone would have come anyway because of the monsters for one thing." Raguna said.

"And besides, I think it's a little too hot for a hot spring," Mist said while scratching her head.

"Oh well, I guess I'll have to find a new way to spice up my bath house, although the flower did give me a good idea!" Melody said happily, "Oh this is going to be so great! I'll see you two later okay!"

"Alright bye Melody!" Mist and Raguna said.

"Buy you two, don't stay out together too long!" Melody said back causing the two of them to blush a little.

"…so, you wanna head home now?" Raguna asked.

"Yeah, that sounds good." Mist responded.

And so the two of them began to walk home together, however Raguna felt his body go numb and he kneeled over.

"Raguna! Are you alright?" Mist asked frantically.

"Yeah, I'm alright, it's not life threatening but I probably can't move for a while…"

"Here, I'll help you out!" Mist wrapped his arm around her and was able to help him stand, "can you still walk?"

"Just barely…"

"But what happened, you didn't get hurt that badly did you?"

"No, I think I was too close to the plant monster, I inhaled some of its gasses, but I think it's only temporary though…"

"But I still want Dr. Edward to look at you,"

"I guess that'll be alright…" So the two of them walked the rest of the way back and out of the cave Finally being able to cool off a little bit seeing as how it just turned dark.

"Hey Raguna, you don't mind me sleeping over tonight because of how late it is will you?"

"Naw I don't mind."

"Okay good! Now I can keep an eye on you in case you're feeling weird while you're sleeping!" Raguna felt a little weird but not unusual, Mist has slept over his home several times before so they've gotten used to it by now.

"Hey Mist?" Raguna asked.

"Yeah?"

"I wonder, what would you do had I not come here?"

"Well, I don't know… Well without you, you wouldn't be able to tend to that field. I guess… maybe I might have sold it to someone eventually, though not during this time frame though."

"I guess it's great that I came here right?"

"Yeah, I mean this town has gotten a bit more exciting since you've came here."

"Yeah, everyone accepted me as if I was always here."

"And because of you, we know now that something is going on in our town, and it's up to us to find out!"

"Mist, I don't think…"

"And maybe we'll be able to find your lost memories!"

"Mist…"

"You know Raguna, when I think about it a little bit, sometimes I wonder if you're a knight sent here to discover the mysteries of this land."

"I guess that can't be far from the truth now can it…" Mist then started to get closer to him as if she was embracing him at this point.

"But you know, no matter what you are, or who you are, you'll always be my knight in shining armor." Raguna was a little taken back by this but soon felt that it was a little sweet that she would think of him as a very important person to her, though possibly not as she described. Just then he remembered what Tori was telling him in the morning that he was Mist's knight.

"And you'll always be my princess…" he said to her laughing to himself remembering Tori's words. "Hey Mist, let's keep heading home okay? I don't feel like sleeping outside after spending most of my day inside a hot cavern."

"Okay!"

"Hey Mist."

"Yeah?"

"You don't believe any of those 'ways to fall in love' things do you?"

"What? No way!"

"Okay, that's good..."


	10. Fourth Week of Summer: Sick Daze

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harvest Moon or Rune Factory…**

**Life on the Mist Farm**

**Fourth Week of Summer: Sick Daze**

It was around late morning and Mist just woke up. It was raining outside. She never liked the rain too much as it reminded her of how lonely she felt. By no means was she physically lonely, Rosetta was always there and so was Felicia and Lara were also her close friends, and of course there was Raguna living in the house to the north of hers too. But even knowing her friends were there for her, she still felt isolated from everyone else. When she was younger, on rainy days like this, she would sometimes just stay in bed for the entire day crying herself to sleep, though she rarely ever does it anymore, especially when Raguna came into her life.

But she still didn't like being in her house by herself so she decided to go to Raguna's house so that she wouldn't feel so lonely. When she got inside she felt something was a little bit off today.

"Raguna?" she yelled, "Hey Raguna, where are you?"

"Mist?," Raguna weakly said, "Oh hey, I'm over here."

"Huh?" she found him in his bed coughing, a lot.

"Why are you here?"

"Well it was raining, the crops get watered on their own so…"

"You got bored and decided to come here to check on me?"

"Yeah, and I'm glad I came, are you okay?"

"I'm just a little sick right now…"

"Have you been overworking yourself again… you always do this Raguna…"

"Sorry, but recently it's gotten a little worse recently, especially after coming out of Clements Cave."

"Didn't Edward tell you to take it easy for a while, I mean I'll be able to do some of the work too you know."

"I know, I'm sorry…"

"…Look saying that now won't change the fact that you're sick so, stay right here and I'll go and get Dr. Edward." She got up and started to run to the clinic but it seemed like Raguna was trying to say something important before she left, but she felt too concerned that she ran out before hearing him.

"Wait what?" when she got to the clinic, she found a notice from Edward.

_I'm out of town for two days to get some more supplies for the clinic. Lara should still be around so if you need anything, ask her._

_Apologies in advance, Dr. Edward._

"_Okay, if Lara's not here, then where is she?"_ Mist thought.

"Oh Mist hey!" Lara cried out.

"Lara there you are, I need you to come with me for a second." Mist grabbed her arm and dragged her to Raguna's house.

"Mist where are you taking me?"

"I need you to check up on Raguna, he's sick."

"Wait, really? How sick?" They ran into his house and Lara did a quick diagnosis. When she finished, he fell asleep and she talked to Mist. "He'll be fine for the time being, but he should rest today. I can't do much for him right now but have him sleep well tonight and when Dr. Edward comes back tomorrow, I might be able to get a good medicine for him."

"But what now?"

"Well, Raguna should more or less just stay in bed for right now. And seeing how its raining right now, he should be going anywhere soon."

"So will he be alright tomorrow."

"Well, he'll still be a little off so he still shouldn't be up working as much as he should, or perhaps in this case has."

"And Dr. Edward should be here tomorrow right and he will be able to recover by the day after tomorrow."

"That's right."

"That's good."

"I guess it's a great feeling."

"What are you talking about?"

"You know, taking care of the person you love so he won't be sick."

"w-w-wait… I just want to make sure he's alright so he doesn't go unconscious again while he works."

"We're all worried about him, that's for sure, but you especially."

"Lara!" Mist said angrily with a huge blush showing up.

"I'll stop by tomorrow to check up on him, until then, you take care of him okay," Lara said winking at her while leaving.

"Lara, wait…" but by the time she said that, she left the house. "But I don't know what to do…" she said giving a large sigh at the end.

This left Mist at a very awkward position. She knew he wasn't going to go anywhere, but he didn't want to leave him alone sick like that. But she didn't know how to take care of a sick person. So Mist did the next best thing, at least the next best thing she could think of…

"Ugh… aw man…" Raguna said as he started to get up.

"Hey you up Raguna?"

"Huh? Mist?"

"You were sleeping like a rock Raguna, and you were burning up so I put a bag of ice on your head." Raguna felt the bag on him.

"Mist you don't have to…"

"You're right I don't, but I want to…"

"Mist…" Raguna faintly said, flattered that she would help him recover.

"Hey, you want something to eat? I can cook something up for you."

"Well… I have some eggs in the fridge if you want to cook some eggs."

"Got it!" Mist put on the apron hanging on the wall and started to cook some eggs. Eggs were not very hard to make (for her at least) and she decided to add several different seasonings and spices to the eggs when she was cooking it. When she finished, she put the eggs on a plate and gave it to Raguna. "Here you go!"

"Thanks Mist." Raguna took a bite out of the eggs and he seemed to enjoy it but something felt off. "Um… hey Mist, what types of seasonings did you put in?"

"Well, I didn't put in a lot, but I did use that red one, I didn't see what it was called though since there wasn't a clear label on it, why what's wrong?"

"Mist… that was a hot pepper spice…" The hot pepper finally hit his senses and he started to fan his mouth frantically while Mist went and got a pitcher of water for him to drink. After it calmed down, Raguna laid back down in his bed.

"Raguna… I'm so sorry…" Mist apologized while rapidly bowing.

"It's alright, its my fault for not labeling it…"

"But I shouldn't have…"

"It's alright... hey look, you mind doing something for me?"

"Yeah what is it?"

"Well, my Wooly should have his fur grown again so do you mind taking my sheers and get the wool?"

"Yeah, but will you be alright?"

"I'm going to be fine."

"…alright…" she took the shears and went off to his monster barn and left to go shear the sheep. It was still raining so Mist was a little wet when she got into the barn she found the wooly and two of the squirrels he caught as well.

"Hello there!" Mist said when petting the little Wooly. She thought it looked adorable… that is until…

chomp

…the Wooly decided to bite her hand. "Okay… you can let go now…" she said sweetly despite her angered look on her face, "let go…" it still didn't let go of her hand. "LET GO!" At this point, she was furious so she started flailing her arm around and hope that it lets go at some point. At least it was able to hold still while Mist was shearing off its wool. It eventually let go after some 'persuasion' from Mist, though it might not be waking up anytime soon.

"Well… that's over," she said sighing while exiting the barn. It was still raining and now started to pour harder so she ran to the house again and got in as quickly as possible. When she got in she was soaked and was dripping wet.

"Hey, you alright Mist?" Raguna asked.

"Yeah, but should you be moving around like that?" Mist said to him.

"I'm alright, I'm just getting something out of the fridge… but you look a little wet."

"Yeah, I guess so, ha ha…" she said weakly laughing, "anyways, I'll be alright in that department. I usually keep some spare clothes here sometimes, so… let's see where I put it…" Mist started looking for her spare clothes trying to remember where she kept them.

"Hmm… Oh, I think I put them near my clothes…" She went into his drawer and was able to find her clothes there.

"That's great… but why did you put them right there near your clothes?"

"Um… well… it was right there and all… and so…" Raguna told her feeling a little bit embarrassed.

"Oh, okay... anyways…" She started to take off her clothes in order to change forgetting that Raguna was right there near her. It was only until he sneezed that she realized that he was standing right there. Though he wasn't paying attention to her, she thought he was looking.

"Um… Mist?"

"AAAAHHHHH!" She screamed and started to throw whatever she had her hands on, which thankfully were just pillows from his bed.

"I'm sorry!"

"Just turn around!" And he did just that. And to make sure that he wasn't going to look, he ducked near the middle table of his kitchen. After putting her dry clothes on, she walked to him.

"Hey, I'm sorry Raguna… I didn't mean to do that to you…" Mist said to him.

"It's alright, I didn't realize that you were going to… change right there…"

"It's just that, I'm kind of used to living alone so I don't really pay much attention to my surroundings much while I change and stuff."

"It's alright… cough I'm kind of not either though so… cough" Raguna was starting to cough more and more so Mist helped him back into bed.

"You alright now Raguna?"

"Yeah…" He said, "I'm alright…"

"That's good, I thought I had to drag Lara here again."

"No, that won't be necessary," Mist said with a small smirk on her face, "I really rather not go in that rain again…"

"I guess that's true, though it is pouring a lot harder today."

"I'd rather not have it rain period."

"Ha, yeah, though I won't have to water the crops when it's raining," Raguna said, "though it wouldn't help that I'm sick as well."

"Yeah, I guess, but… its still rain…" She had this dreary look on her face when she said that, more evident when she stared out the window.

"Hey Mist… do you… not like the rain or something?" Mist was a little taken back with his question, he continued saying, "I mean, you always come here when its raining,"

"Well, since the rain waters the crops for you, I don't have any reason to be in the rain."

"But there has to be a better reason than that…"

"I JUST DON'T OKAY!" She snapped at him when he was trying to ask her about it. Realizing what she did, she apologized to him, "I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean…"

"No… I shouldn't have asked you… I'm sorry…" he said to her, "I shouldn't have asked that…"

"It's not that I don't trust you with my personal problems… it's just"

"It's hard to explain it because it might spark some bad memories…"

"I'm sorry… I know I'm a little selfish sometimes… I at least have a past…" she said looking depressed, "It must be hard for you sometimes, I probably wouldn't be able to take that sort of pain."

"Mist, it's alright, I'm fine…"

"Raguna… do you ever feel that sometimes, you feel lonely?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know, while you were living here… did you ever feel lonely because you're the new guy here, and you didn't feel like you belong here?"

"Honestly… yeah, I did," Raguna said, "It felt weird, especially since I didn't have my memories…"

"Did it scare you sometimes?"

"Yeah…"

"Did you feel like everyone's just passing by while you're just another body in the way?"

"It did… but then everyone started to accept me…"

"Does it feel like sometimes that you're still a bit of an outcast?"

"Yes…"

"Raguna, I'm sorry I'm asking these things to you…"

"No, it's alright, its nice to have someone to talk about these things to."

"Heh, I guess," Mist said with a smile on her face. "It's nice to just be with the people you love too right?"

"Yeah, I suppose that's true…" Raguna took a long hard look at himself when she asked him those things. When he really thought about it, he was feeling a little happy but depressed at the same time. Mist caught on to this and asked him…

"You thinking about leaving if you got your memories back, correct?"

"Mist… I still don't know, maybe it's too early to think about something like that."

"I see…" she said.

"Hey don't worry so much over it," Raguna said, "who I am won't change so I really do see myself staying here for a while longer."

"I guess that's okay too…"

After a while, the rain that was pouring hard before was starting to clear up a little bit. Raguna was able to get some more sleep but Mist went outside to check on the crops. She noticed that Rosetta was there so she realized that it was fairly late.

"Oh, Mist what are you doing in Raguna's house? Don't tell me…"

"Rosetta… It's not like that! Raguna got sick so I'm taking care of him right now…"

"Isn't taking care of sick people Lara's job?"

"She had to take care of something…"

"Aww… how sweet…"

"Rosetta…"

"Anyways, have you heard?"

"What is it?" Mist asked.

"There's something going on in Mt. Gigant."

"You mean besides the monsters?"

"Yeah, Mei saw it the other day, she said it would be a good idea to talk to you and Raguna about it since the both of you are the most involved."

"So what did she say?"

"Well…"

_Mei ran into Rosetta while she was making her daily shipment._

"_Hey Rosetta…"_

"_Hey Mei, you look a little tired."_

"_That's besides the point, guess what I found out?"_

"…_okay I give what is it…"_

"_There's some sort of strange individual that's going to the Mt. Gigant!"_

_Rosetta pulled her aside a little more just to ensure nobody was listening._

"_Wait, who did you see?"_

"_Well, I know for a fact that it definitely isn't anyone around here… And what that person was wearing… it looks like a military person."_

"_Raguna and Mist both say that this might have something to do with the Sechs empire… do you think that it's possible that…"_

"_It may be a military person from the Sechs empire? Yes, I believe it is, in fact with what you told me about how Raguna and Mist both think that the Sechs is invading our land, I have no doubt."_

"_Do you want me to tell that to them?"_

"_Yes, they seem the most involved in this situation, I think it would be wise to do that."_

"No way…" Mist said surprised.

"Yeah… we think it would be best if you two investigated it first without telling anyone."

"I know, I don't want anyone to worry…"

"So, you going to tell Raguna about this?"

"…no, I can't…"

"Huh? Why not?"

"Well, the most likely case is that he goes anyways. I don't want him to rush things."

"Oh Trying to protect your lover right?"

"IT'S NOT LIKE THAT!" Mist yelled, "Listen… he's been overworking lately, and if he goes to Mt. Gigant, he'll probably…"

"I see…" Rosetta said, "Knowing him, had he known about this, he would probably leave immediately. Who would have guessed that all of us would be so reliant on Raguna?"

"Well… I did say…"

"Besides you…" Rosetta sighed, "But I really think it'll be a better idea if you kept a closer eye on him for the time being so he doesn't do anything foolish. I'll ask Mei not to talk about it to anyone else for now."

"Okay then…"

"Alright, later then!"

"Okay bye!"

After saying her goodbyes, Mist went back inside and found Raguna still sleeping. She thought he looked very peaceful and innocent like that, and not the kind of person who would go and risk his life in order to find his lost memories as well as to protect the people he loves.

"Oh heavenly spirit," Mist said to herself, "please watch over Raguna, I want him to be safe when he goes into more of these dangerous areas… and also help me protect him, so that I don't have to lose him… the same way I lost…"


	11. Fifth Week of Summer: Busy Times

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harvest Moon or Rune Factory…**

**Life on the Mist Farm**

**Fifth Week of Summer: Busy Times**

"Hey Boys, how's the house coming along?" Sabrina asked.

"Huh? Well, you could say it's going nicely," Neumann said rather nervously.

"Well, we did just start on it so it's probably going to take a while," Raguna said hammering away.

Raguna decided to upgrade the house to make it bigger as well as fit bigger objects inside the house. Mist was fine with upgrading the house as she wanted to do it for a while now. Neumann was the only carpenter in town so naturally Raguna asked him to upgrade the house… for a relatively good price of course since he still needed the materials to do it.

"I guess I could envy you Raguna, I've never seen a boy at your age managing so many things in his life," Sabrina told the young boy.

"Yeah well…" He said scratching his head.

"You know Raguna, you can stop at any time you want, you're technically not even supposed to be refurbishing this house with me," Neuman jokingly said.

"Naw, I do want to make it nice."

"Yeah but what about Mist? She really does want you to work on the farm every once in a while."

"Well, it is almost the end of the season and some the crops I shipped away won't be able to grow back in time so in the meantime I guess I could help you out sometimes."

"But even you have to take breaks sometimes right?"

"Heh… I guess so…"

"Here, let's head back to my place real fast, I have to do something. We can talk on the way."

"So I guess you boys are heading out right?" Sabrina asked.

"Heh… well yeah, I suppose," Neumann said, "you can always join us since we're heading to the bar after to get a bite to eat. Maybe we can get a drink or two?"

"Jeez, you'll never change…" Sabrina said while walking away.

"Hey Neumann," Raguna said curiously, "What was that all about."

"Well you see," he started to say but after thinking about it, he said, "we have some, awkward history between us… I guess I can tell you at a later day."

"Oh okay," Raguna responded back sounding curious.

The both of them walked towards the house. The both of them were fairly sweaty since they've been working all day so far and it was still summer so it was blazing hot out there. When they opened the door they went inside still talking to each other when they found Felicity sleeping on the counter again.

"Hey Felicity, hey wake up!" Neumann said shaking Felicity a bit.

"Huh? Oh, Neumann… and Raguna too…"

"You fell asleep again didn't you?"

"I'm sorry Neumann…"

"Hey don't worry too much about it okay, just go the back and make sure we have enough materials okay?"

"O… okay…" Felicity said rather weakly.

"…Hey Neumann, what's up with Felicity?"

"Felicity? Well, the thing is, she's really sick right now."

"But when I came into this town she was like that back then… and up 'til now she hasn't seemed to get any better."

"Yeah well… this actually has been going on for about a year now…"

"Wait, what?"

"Yeah, before then she was perfectly fine. Then one day, poof, she just contracted some sort of illness."

"And she's still ill?"

"Yeah, Dr. Edwards says that for some reason all of the medicine doesn't work on her, and when she does an examination on her, he says it's perfectly fine. He believes that it doesn't put her life in jeopardy, but it isn't exactly healthy either."

"So isn't there anything we could do?"

"Well… not at the moment no…"

"Oh I see."

"It's a pity though, that girl works exceptionally hard. She says that one day, when her father retires, she wants to take over and watch over the city for him."

"I see…" Raguna felt a little worried as well as a bit sad. She's a hard working girl like most of the people here, but it's like she's suffering… _I should do something _about_ this…_ Raguna thought.

The next day, Raguna was working on his farm again shipping away what little crops he had left for the Summer. He was about to go help Neumann again until he saw Mist running towards him.

"Raguna!" She called to him.

"Mist? What's wrong, you look like you're in a hurry."

"Well… actually no… I wasn't in much of a hurry, I just wanted to run!"

"Oh… well… okay then…" He said with a bit of a sweatdrop.

"Anyways, I need to tell you something important."

"Okay… what is it?"

"Well, since next week…" Just then she got interrupted with Rosetta running towards them calling Mist's name.

"Hey Mist!"

"Huh? Rosetta?"

"Good… hey you're not busy are you?"

"Well I was going to tell…"

"Okay good," Rosetta said interrupting her again, "anyways I need you to help me with a shipping order, there was some sort of error in our shipping and we need your help."

"Couldn't you ask Raguna to help you?"

"You're more experienced with these kinds of situations, now c'mon, we have to hurry!" Rosetta then pulled Mist by the arm and started to pull her away, though through Raguna's point of view, it sort of looked like she was dragging her somewhat. But it didn't matter much to him so he decided to go help Neumann a little bit more.

"Hey Neumann, I'm coming up there!"

"Hold on there Raguna!" Neumann said.

"Huh? Why?"

"Well… not to sound like I don't appreciate your help but I just think that you should get some time off doing any sort of work."

"But what do you mean?"

"Go, you don't have too much to do now right? Just go live it up a little bit, you've been doing too much lately."

"But are you sure you can do this by yourself?"

"Hey, I built some of the houses around here, I think I'm going to be alright with a little house upgrade."

"Okay then…" Raguna sighed realizing he didn't really know what to do. But then he remembered the conversation yesterday about Felicity's illness and decided to go into the library to research.

"Oh, h-hey Raguna…" Tori timidly said as he walked in.

"Hey Tori."

"What brings you here?"

"Well, I wanted to help Felicity, so I want to see if there are any books about it…"

"Oh, I see, well if you want me to, I can help you if you want…"

"That would be great, thanks Tori."

"And when he gets back I'm sure Russell and the kids will help out too."

"That's great!"

While the two of them were starting their research, Rosetta brought Mist to the backroom of the store. To her amazement (or annoyance) there was an overabundance of materials.

"How did this happen?" Mist said.

"Well… you see my dad here forgot to check his numbers when he sent off for the order so now we have a surplus of… well this stuff…"

"But where is he now?"

"He's tending to the shop right now but now we have to sort these out before late afternoon."

"Why?"

"We sent word to the person that ships our material to come back and get some stuff and to refund our money and if we don't give him an accurate total, we'll end up with less than we started with."

"Okay fine… now what do you want me to do?" Mist asked Rosetta.

"This…" Rosetta handed her a bunch of papers to her and they started doing their work.

Back at the library, Russell and the kids finally returned.

"Oh hey Raguna, what brings you here?" Russell asked the young farmer.

"Oh Russell, hey well… I wanted to know more about Felicity's illness…"

"So you decided to research it… well I have been trying to read about something like that for a while now, but I guess with more people here, it would be more productive."

"Can we help too?" Nicholas asked.

"Yeah," Raguna said, "The more the merrier right?"

"Yep!" Cecilia said happily while walking over to pull a book off the bookshelf.

"Oh by the way Raguna, where's Mist?" Nicholas asked.

"Well… I think she's still with Rosetta, but why do you ask?"

"Well," Russell began saying, "the both of you are usually together all the time so, I just figured."

"What are you implying?" Raguna said, clearly a little bit irked.

"What? I'm just saying how the two of you are always together."

"…okay…" Raguna said now confused. _But not I wonder what Mist is doing right now?_ Raguna thought.

After they sorted everything out Mist and Rosetta laid down on the ground tired.

"Somehow we were able to finish all that…" Rosetta said gasping.

"Yeah, just like before…" Mist said gasping as well.

"haha… remember when we used to do big jobs like this when we were younger?"

"Yeah, you used to force me to help you out a lot."

"What ever happened to those moments?"

"…I guess," Mist began, "we just started to grow up…"

"But what happened, we used to be so much closer than this."

"I don't know… I mean Lara left for a while to study and become a nurse, and Felicity is trying to be a stronger person…"

"And then all of a sudden, people started to come in and out of the town…"

"and the two of us started drifting apart…"

"Yet, you've never changed…" Rosetta joked.

"Yeah, neither have you…"

"So many things have changed though."

The both of them stood up and brushed off the debris off their clothes.

"We'll still be friends no matter what right?" Mist asked.

"Of course we will," Rosetta said, "But I'll still get married first."

"You're still stuck on that, eh?" Mist said, "You know we made that bet when we were still kids right?"

"You're just admitting that I'll get married before you and Raguna do."

"What? I…" an incredibly flustered Mist said.

"Oh by the way, isn't next week…"

"Yeah, it is."

"Did you tell Raguna yet?"

"Well I was going to until I got rudely interrupted."

"hehe, that's what you were talking to him about huh?"

Just then Raguna felt a weird sensation in his body and then…

"ACHOO!"

"Are you okay Raguna?" Cecilia asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"You know, I read in books that if you sneeze, someone close to you is talking about you," Tori said to him.

"It probably isn't anything good though…" he sighed.

"I'm sure they're saying many good things about you!" Cecilia assured him while getting ready to read the next book.

"Yeah, yeah…" Raguna said beginning to read another book. As he read it he started to get interested in it a little more. It wasn't about anything to possibly help Felicity, but it was something that caught his eye. _This book… it's about Earthmates… hmm…_ he began to read on until…

"AHHH!"

"Ceci, what's wrong?" her father asked her. All of them looked at her and then looked at the book that she dropped and went over to read what it was about.

"Let's see… the cursed stone… a stone that brings misfortune to those who acquired it…" they looked over at Cecilia, "hey Ceci, do you know anything about this?"

"y-yeah…"

"It's okay Ceci, we won't get mad, just tell us what you know about this?" Russell said in a calm voice.

"Well… I read it about a year ago… I read about the cursed stone and that it is supposed to bring misfortune to whoever owns it."

"Yeah, Cecilia likes to collect different types of things," Russell added

"When I read this I started giving all my stones away to people," and then something clicked inside Raguna, Russell and Tori's heads.

"You don't think that…"

"…Raguna, you too?"

"Same here Russell." The three of them ran out of the library as soon as they realized and started to look for Felicity.

Just outside the village Mist and Rosetta were outside sitting down.

"At least we got the money back…" Mist said to Rosetta.

"Yeah… but by the way the guy was acting… he didn't seem too happy about the fact that we over ordered something and now he's lugging it back… oh well that's life," Rosetta bluntly stated.

"I guess…" Mist said smiling back at Rosetta.

"Hey! Don't give me that look."

"Haha…"

"C'mon Mist, I'm not always like that!"

"But you usually are! Anyways, do you want to stop by my house?"

"Sure, why not?"

Meanwhile after much searching.

"Oh Raguna," Felicity said, "how are you doing? You look like you were looking for something."

"Yeah, well… do you have a second?"

"Yeah, but…"

"Good, cause we need to go to your house!"

"WHAT!?" She yelled blushing.

"uh… well, I'll explain on the way…" So the both of them got to her room .

"So basically you're saying that this stone Cecilia gave to me is cursed?"

"Well, if you tie everything together, it's not as farfetched a theory as it sounds, but asides from that stone there, I can't say that there's really any concrete evidence."

"But Raguna, you've told me before, you should always start with what you've got… and then take it one step at a time…"

"Yeah but you were trying to do too much at once."

"So then let's go." The both of them soon made it to Felicity's room.

"So this is the stone you're talking about." Felicity asked him

"Yeah, at least I think so… I'm still not sure how we can tell…"

"Let's see… well I think that Dr. Edward will be able to help us out. He's able to sense any supernatural spirits and such. If this really is the cursed stone, then he should know."

"Okay then." Eventually they got there and explained the situation to Dr. Edward.

"I see, so you think that stone is the cause for her illness."

"Yes but we wanted to have you check it out first."

"Okay let's see…" Dr. Edward checked out the stone for a little while and then reported his findings to the both of them. "I knew it!" he said loudly.

"What did you find?" the both of them said.

"This single stone is emitting some sort of weird aura, almost demonic."

"So is there any way of getting rid of it?"

"No… but at the very least I can seal it temporarily and then throw it away to prevent anyone here from getting affected by it."

"So will I be alright afterwards?" Felicity asked.

"Well, of course, cursed objects will only affect those whenever it's near them. Once it is removed, you should be able to return to the way you were before you got affected."

"That's a relief, isn't it Felicity?" Raguna asked.

"Yeah but, I don't feel any better…"

"You should be fine starting tomorrow, if not sooner."

"Thank you Dr. Edward." Felicity said as they were leaving.

Eventually the others found Raguna and Felicity together and he explained that everything's been taken care of, and the others were relieved.

"Hey Raguna!" yelled a voice from a distance.

"Huh? Mist, Rosetta, hey!" Felicity yelled back.

"So what have you two been doing?" Raguna asked.

"Busy work, But I see that it's the same with you guys."

"Yep… oh by the way, did you guys manage to see if Neumann was done with the house?"

"Well it looked like he was almost done, but it is getting late so he'll probably finish later."

"Actually, it is getting a little late for us too so…" Tori said, "I need to drag my brother out of the caves first."

"Yeah, your brother likes to do that a lot, makes me wonder why he hasn't gotten any of the other passes…" Felicity wondered even though it was obvious to the others. So everyone left to head home. But on the way back…

"Hey Mist…" Raguna said stopping her.

"Yeah, what's up Raguna?" Mist asked.

"I was just wondering… what was it that you wanted to tell me before?" Raguna asked.

"Oh right I almost forgot again. My birthday's coming up and I was wondering if you knew or not."

"Actually, this is the first time you've actually mentioned it haha…" Raguna said

"Oh really? Well now you know!" Mist said

"But you still haven't told me the date yet…"

"Oh right, duh… it's on the first day of Fall. Oh, I have to head home now so later!"

"Later!" he said waving back to the young girl. Though the date she said made him seem a little bit uneasy. _Hmmm, why does that date make me worried?"_

After heading inside, he took a quick glance at the calendar only to find…

"Oh… shoot… why'd she tell me now?"

…that Mist's birthday was less than 3 days from today.

The next day…

"Hey Raguna, I should almost be done with this house pretty soon, just hang tight there okay?" Neumann said.

"Okay, thanks!" Raguna said while continuing to plow his field.

"Hey you two!" Felicity said energetically.

"Hey Felicity, you're looking pretty energetic today," Raguna said.

"Well, I guess its thanks to all of you that I'm feeling better. I mean I don't feel weak anymore."

"That's great!"

"Oh by the way… I've been meaning to ask… are you and…" but then she got interrupted by Neumann calling for Raguna's help

"Sorry Felicity, I gotta help him for a sec."

"No that's okay."

Soon afterwards, Mist showed up.

"Oh Mist, how are you doing?"

"Felicity? You actually look alright."

"Yeah, Raguna and the others helped me."

"Oh is really? That's great, that means you're not sick anymore right?"

"Yeah! And because of that I owe them all so much, especially Raguna, everyone said he was the one who asked everyone to help me."

"Really?"

"Yeah… but hey Mist… you two aren't… you know, seeing each other right now?"

"What do you mean, I'm watching him right now."

"No I mean dating him."

"Well no but why is that important?"

"Well, it makes me a little bit relieved."

"Huh?" Mist said in a bit of a confused look.

"Well… I probably shouldn't say this but… I think I'm in love with him!"

"What?" Mist said with a blank stare in her eyes… "she… loves him?"


End file.
